Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar has delivered a blunt verdict on the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border: It saw the emergency, failed to take charge and finally acted after the political damage was done.
Salazar, who also served as Interior secretary under Barack Obama, makes the case in his newly released memoir, Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive America.
“From day one, there should have been a great sense of urgency in addressing the crisis of a broken border and the migration crisis that we are seeing,” Salazar told Fox News Digital.
Instead, he said, the White House remained heavily focused on Europe and Asia while treating Mexico and the Western Hemisphere as secondary concerns.
Salazar argued that Biden’s team lacked both a comprehensive plan and somebody clearly in charge:
“We need someone in the White House to oversee the border, migration, Mexico, and the Americas. No one is in charge now. We need a border and migration czar.”
Salazar said he delivered that message directly to Biden during a trip to Mexico City. He became so frustrated after being excluded from a major meeting that he considered resigning.
He ultimately secured a private conversation with Biden and urged him to appoint someone with the authority to coordinate policy across federal agencies and communicate “with one voice.”
The recommendation went nowhere.
“I think that’s what trapped the administration into this sense that they woke up too late,” Salazar said.
Southwest border encounters reached nearly 2.5 million during fiscal year 2023, the highest annual total recorded by Customs and Border Protection. December 2023 alone produced almost 302,000 encounters.
Biden eventually issued an executive order restricting asylum claims in June 2024. Crossings subsequently fell sharply, reaching approximately 54,000 encounters that September.
But Salazar said the administration not only waited too long—it failed to explain its belated action before Biden abandoned his reelection campaign.
That left Donald Trump with what Salazar called the “low-hanging fruit” of the border crisis.
“Republicans, like Donald Trump, use it as a political advantage because that’s how they win elections,” he said.
Trump subsequently demonstrated how much executive policy mattered. Border Patrol apprehensions plunged to 8,347 in February 2025—fewer than 300 per day—after the administration reinstated tougher enforcement measures.
Although Salazar agrees with Trump that the border was “broken,” he opposes the president’s enforcement strategy and rhetoric. He favors deeper cooperation among the United States, Mexico and Canada, expanded legal labor mobility and renewed investment in North American trade.
His proposal, called the “Borderlands Platform,” would treat immigration as both an economic and national-security issue instead of merely a domestic political argument.
Salazar said he has already encouraged several possible Democratic presidential candidates—including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly—to put border policy at the center of the 2028 campaign.
“Not that I have a lot of sway,” he said, “but at least I will do everything I can to make sure that this is at the heart of every Democrat running for president.”
MY QUICK TAKE:
Ken Salazar has written an entire book to reveal what Americans watching television figured out sometime around the third millionth illegal crossing: Nobody appeared to be in charge.
The administration did not need a communications strategy to explain the border. It needed a border strategy worth communicating.
Biden’s team spent years insisting the situation was seasonal, manageable, inherited, exaggerated or somehow Donald Trump’s fault. Then, five minutes before the election, it discovered executive authority and announced, “Good news—we found the brakes!”
Salazar deserves credit for admitting the failure. But Democrats cannot keep treating the border like a kitchen fire they ignored until the curtains caught—and then blaming Republicans for campaigning beside the ashes.
Trump did not create Biden’s strongest political weakness. Biden gift-wrapped it, attached a bow and left it sitting at the southern border with no signature required.
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News: Ex-Obama, Biden diplomat blasts former boss’ border failures
- Customs and Border Protection: Southwest land-border encounter statistics
- CBP: Southwest border encounters fell after Biden’s June 2024 action
- CBP: Border Patrol apprehensions fell below 300 per day in February 2025
- Simon & Schuster/Google Books: Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive America
