President Biden’s proclamation today on border security looks more like an effort to get control of his sinking poll numbers than it does a good-faith effort to address the migrant influx that is roiling the nation. He vows that the measures announced today will enable his administration to “gain control of our border.” A closer look at the particulars, though, shows that they are about as flimsy and porous as America’s frontier with Mexico.

Mr. Biden’s vow to “bar migrants who cross our Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum” might sound tough. The fine print of his proclamation has loopholes wide enough for a migrant-filled tractor-trailer to speed through. For all the talk of closing the border to asylum seekers, who for years have been gaming the system, taking advantage of America’s heritage of giving shelter to oppressed foreigners, there are plenty of exceptions.

For one thing, Mr. Biden noted, the welcome mat is still out for asylum seekers using a “lawful established process.” Caveats allow migrants to enter if they are “unaccompanied children,” or “victims of a severe form of trafficking,” or facing “an acute medical emergency or an imminent and extreme threat to life and safety,” White House officials said earlier today. Just as migrants gamed the asylum system, these new exemptions can be expected to be abused.

The president reassured his party’s left flank not to fret if the border “crackdown” seemed “too strict.” The ACLU already plans to fight them in court. “Be patient,” he urged, promising that a raft of other measures were on the way to “make our immigration system more fair and just.” That could suggest more back-door loosening of immigration restrictions, like his administration’s de facto grant of amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants since 2022.

Such an immigration policy belies Mr. Biden’s new pose as a champion of border security. Loosening migration policies was a hallmark of his tenure from day one. He reversed several of President Trump’s policies on border control — including halting construction of a border wall, abandoning the “Remain in Mexico” policy, and ending enforcement of the “public charge” rule allowing poor migrants to take advantage of welfare programs and Medicaid.

As a candidate for president Mr. Biden condemned Trump for trying “to deny those fleeing dangerous situations their right to seek asylum,” vowing to “uphold our moral responsibility” and “not turn away those fleeing violence, war, & poverty.” Those were the same asylum policies that Trump saw were being exploited by migrants and sought to reform — and which Mr. Biden is now looking to waive in the interest of “securing our border.”

It’s no wonder a recent Bloomberg-Morning Consult survey finds that among swing state voters Trump leads Mr. Biden by 20 points on immigration issues. Polls like that likely animated Mr. Biden’s effort today to score political points against the GOP and his likely rival in November. “The border is not a political issue to be weaponized,” Mr. Biden lamented, noting that he would have preferred legislative action, but “Republicans left me no choice.”

Even if the recent border security legislation on Capitol Hill did get entangled in election-year politics, it’s disingenuous for Mr. Biden to attempt to pin the border crisis on Republicans — especially considering his own efforts to encourage migration. Far better for leaders of both parties to adopt a course, long advocated by the Sun, of openness to legal migration while maintaining strict control of the border and enforcing policies against illegal immigration

Mr. Biden today reiterated his call for Congress to act on immigration, opening the budgetary spigot to hire thousands of new asylum officers to process migrants, plus more border security agents and judges, not to mention “high tech detection machines,” purportedly to stop the flow of fentanyl across the border. A simpler, and likely more effective, solution would be to finish the border wall that Trump began during his tenure in office.