I think it is very not pointless. You're running with the assumption that the increase in later 2020 is part of a singular continuous trend that continued into Biden's administration that would have existed independent of who won the election. But I know that rationally, you can imagine there being independent causes for a smaller rise preceding a much larger one.
Sure, I can imagine reasons. Like, maybe partisan Democrat deep state agents used the CIA mind control satellites to make thousands of migrants head to the USA in Trump's last year to discredit him in the lead up to election.
This is of course facetious, it's to illustrate a certain emptiness about such an exercise. As an intellectual process, it's arse about face. We form a hypothesis based on evidence. Why are we picking out ideas (like the Democrats send out a "vibe" that increases immigration) to explain data without evidence, whether in this specific case or to explain immigration generally. What is the evidence this "vibe" theory even exists? To what extent it might, why give it priority over established, practical reasons that are well identified?
For any event we can speculate far more reasons why something could have happened than they actual reasons that they did. The obvious danger is not just that this is a deeply flawed intellectual process, it's that this is abused by people as a vehicle to project their biases onto reality. Even worse they then elevate that speculation into assumed fact, and it becomes extraordinarily hard to shift. Of course, in extreme cases, this is what conspiracy theory is.
Is it playing out bad for the country? Did prior administrations predict it playing out bad for the country, or just bad for themselves? Your evidence of failure is lowered approval, but objectively it seems to work.
Whether it plays out badly for the country depends on a wide range of factors, many of which are more likely to be subjective preferences than objective measures. But you're in a democracy: what the people as a whole like or believe in is supposed to be significant. What is good for a party (i.e. that people continue to vote for it) should be an indirect representation of what the people like and believe in. Obviously, plenty of caveats are involved here.
That's the big question you need to answer, really. If the rate of immigration is independent of administration, why does it go way down whenever Trump takes office? Is it pure coincidence that these global economic and political upheavals start as Biden enters, maintain a high level until his rhetoric changes, and then crater within a month of Trump regaining the presidency?
Rate of immigration is not independent of administration: that's a very different claim. I am arguing immigration is affected by practical considerations not vibes, and government policy is definitely a practical consideration which can vary from one administration to the next. I am also assuming here you mean
illegal immigration. Although as we can see from Trump's anti-immigration crusade, they may be rather more interlinked than you might think, and illegal immigration has been reduced in part by attacking legal immigration. No-one would argue Trump has not been very strict on immigration. The accusation many would make is
too strict.
So, for instance, Trump deleted asylum. I don't doubt that this has had a substantial effect on immigration, both legal and illegal. Obvious questions about deleting asylum are a) is this legal and b) is this humane? I'm sure a lot of economic refugees abuse asylum in the hope they can sneak in, but the reality is that if you delete asylum then you make victims of genuine asylum seekers. I'd note that a major formative event behind the UN convention on refugees from the 50s is all the Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1930s that were denied entry when they tried to flee. I should need say no more. A blanket denial of asylum should weigh on the collective national conscience.
