Elections have consequences, and never has that reality been clearer than when Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump as commander-in-chief in 2021.

As I highlighted Monday at The Federalist, Joe Biden’s mental incapacity is only half the problem; his failed policies represent an equally devastating indictment of his presidency and now his reelection campaign. President Biden’s “near immediate and absolute reversal” of Trump’s foreign policy turned our world into a chaotic tinderbox, and his reversal of border security shows the same kind of damage — but closer to home.

In the case of border security, the change came quickly, with Biden, in his first 100 days in office, reportedly executing 10 different orders on immigration that directly reversed Trump’s policies.

“I want to make it clear … I’m not making new law; I’m eliminating bad policy,” Biden said when he signed several immigration-related executive orders on Feb. 2, 2021, less than a month into his presidency. “What I’m doing is taking on the issues that — 99 percent of them — that the president — the last president of the United States issued executive orders I felt were very counterproductive to our security, counterproductive to who we are as a country, particularly in the area of immigration.”

Reality soon hit home, as the reversal of Trump’s border policy prompted an unrelenting flood of illegal crossings. To date, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 10 million illegal aliens — so many that even the hard-left Democrat mayor of New York warned that the unchecked stream of illegal aliens would “destroy New York City” and affect every part of it.

The numbers represent only part of the story, however, with Americans feeling firsthand the damage of Biden’s immigration policies. In Chicago, which at its peak saw some 2,000 illegal aliens arrive per week, residents watched as the city spent nearly $300 million in tax dollars to give resources to the illegal border crossers. The crisis was made personal in New York, too, when the mayor commandeered a public high school to shelter illegal aliens, displacing students who were required to stay home and study remotely.

Horrific crimes allegedly committed by illegal aliens — such as the rape and murder of Maryland mom Rachel Morin, the brutal killing of 12-year-old Texan Jocelyn Nungaray, and the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley — give Americans a stark reminder of the real human cost of an open border. While apologists for the Biden administration’s failed immigration policy argue that illegal aliens are actually less likely than Americans to commit violent crimes, that counter ignores the reality that none of those crimes would have occurred had the president secured the border — because none of the murderers would have been in our country.

Statistics also show a strong uptick in illegal crossers with criminal records. In fiscal year 2023, Border Patrol agents arrested more than 35,000 illegal aliens with criminal convictions, including nearly 600 known gang members. That number greatly surpasses the just over 4,200 illegal aliens with criminal histories detained in fiscal year 2019.

The porous border also represents a threat to our homeland and national security. Of the illegal aliens apprehended at the southwest border since fiscal year 2021, nearly 300 were individuals on the terrorist watchlist — “and those are only the individuals Border Patrol agents have caught,” the Homeland Security Republicans point out. Not only does the Biden administration’s failures to secure the border raise the risk of terrorism, but it appears the country has also already suffered its first attempted terror attack connected to illegal border crosser: An illegal alien from Jordan crashed through the gate at Quantico.

In addition to the illegal aliens flooding the country, drug cartels are exploiting the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border. Border agents in fiscal year 2023 seized over 27,000 pounds of fentanyl at the southwest border — reportedly enough drugs to kill roughly 6 billion people. Yet, according to Homeland Security Republicans, “federal officials estimate they are only able to seize 5-10 percent of all fentanyl smuggled across the Southwest border.” Americans feel firsthand the effects of the proliferation of fentanyl, with cities crawling with addicts and children dying from fentanyl-laced drugs.

Try as he might to spin the border crisis, Joe Biden just cannot overcome the clarity of the consequences that flowed from his reversal of Trump’s border policies. And with immigration reported as one of voters’ top concerns this election year, Biden’s failures on this front are just as damning to his candidacy as his mental incompetence.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.