After previously saying it needed help from Congress to stop the unprecedented flow of illegal immigration along the US-Mexico border, Joe Biden’s administration is expected to enact an immigration-related executive order this week.
With illegal immigration a priority for voters across the country and millions of immigrants having crossed into the United States illegally over the past three and a half years, Biden and his team plan to do something about it as soon as Tuesday.
They had previously called on Congress to pass new laws to expand Biden’s presidential authority over the border, but a bipartisan border deal failed to get off the ground earlier this year.
Again in May, the Senate voted against the border measure, and both Democrats and Republicans united against it.
The plan now, according to several officials familiar with the matter interviewed by the Associated Pressis to enact parts of the Senate deal unilaterally, including denying entry to immigrants after certain thresholds are met.
The National Guard returns a group of about 100 migrants to Mexico near El Paso, Texas, on May 30. Under Joe Biden, more than 7 million immigrants have arrived in the United States in just 3.5 years.
The sources said that specifically, the White House is weighing a policy that would limit the number of migrant encounters to 4,000 per day for a week, 28,000 in total.
Although it is not clear what would happen when that threshold is reached.
A similar policy was at the center of the failed Senate deal, but Republicans criticized the measure for not doing enough to combat illegal immigration, something Biden’s own Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary said. Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that it was a ‘crisis’ in April.
According to the report, the authority the White House hoped to use comes from Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
That law gives presidents leeway to block the entry of certain immigrants if it would be “detrimental” to national interests.
Former President Trump repeatedly relied on that section of the law to prevent certain immigrants from crossing illegally and seeking asylum at the southern border.
Presidents using section 212(f) to restrict immigration do not require congressional approval.
But Biden has repeatedly said he wants new laws from Congress to fix the border.
In pushing for passage of the twice-defeated Senate bill, Biden said in January: “It would give me, as president, new emergency authority to close the border when it becomes overwhelmed.”
“And if I were given that authority, I would use it the day I signed the bill,” his January statement continued.
But it appears that the White House has since decided that they can act alone, as Republicans have accused, and will enact reforms this week, although the timing of the reported executive action is opaque.
President Joe Biden’s possible plan would reportedly allow a threshold of 28,000 migrants to cross into the United States per week before border officials clamp down on the flow of people.
Biden is reportedly considering using Section 212(f) to restrict migration, which does not require congressional approval.
The administration has reportedly been trying to use this power for months, and now sources say an executive order could come this week.
The White House ‘continues to explore a number of policy options and we remain committed to taking steps to address our broken immigration system,’ spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said recently.
“While Congressional Republicans chose to hinder increased border enforcement, President Biden will not stop fighting to deliver the resources that border and immigration personnel need to secure our border,” he added.
But when asked Sunday about reversing Biden’s election-year border policy, Republican President Mike Johnson criticized the administration’s mulled move, saying it is “too little, too late.”
“He is desperately trying to show the American people that he wants to address the problem that he created,” Johnson said.
‘We documented 64 specific actions that President Biden and DHS Secretary Mayorkas took…over the course of three and a half years, beginning the first day President Biden (took office), to open the border.’
“They did it intentionally, it has had catastrophic effects on our country that we will live with for decades to come.”
Despite increasing deportations and operations from the United States and Mexico, migrants on the border between Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez and the US city of El Paso continue to try to cross the Rio Grande border irregularly.
President Mike Johnson claims Biden has “engineered” the immigration crisis
Johnson has spent his few months in power pressuring the White House to take executive action on the border.
And now that they are, he stated that it only comes because it is an election year.
“He wants to issue some kind of executive order, I guess to show that he really cares about the issue,” Johnson said. “The only reason you do it is because polls say it’s the biggest problem in America.”
‘And the first question that comes up in almost every public forum is what’s going on with that open border and why would President Biden allow it? He did more than allow it, he designed it and everyone knows it.”