The Biden administration announced new executive actions on Tuesday that will enable U.S. authorities to periodically close the U.S. border when border encounters reach specific thresholds.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that among the new border actions, Biden issued a proclamation suspending entry of noncitizens who cross the Southern border into the United States unlawfully.
Biden also issued an interim final rule, permitting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cease asylum screenings and instead rapidly expel border arrivals if the seven-day average of daily encounters at the southern border exceeds 2,500 a day. The rule states these rapid expulsion measures would remain in effect until 14 calendar days after there has been a seven-day average of fewer than 1,500 encounters between the ports of entry at the U.S. border.
“Since his first day in office, President Biden has called on Congress to secure our border and address our broken immigration system. Over the past three years, while Congress has failed to act, the President has acted to secure our border,” the White House said Tuesday.
The decision to unveil these new border crossing and asylum restrictions comes after Biden attempted to attach new border and immigration funding to a broader supplemental spending bill to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel and to expand security alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. The border security component of this bill collapsed as Republicans demanded more specific policy changes, in addition to funding for more immigration personnel and equipment. During the legislative standoff, many Republicans argued Biden could take immediate executive action, without Congress, to curb historically high border encounters under his administration.
While the Tuesday White House statement blamed Congress for inaction on border security, Congressional Republicans criticized Biden for finally taking the executive actions they insisted he could months earlier.
“126 days ago, Joe Biden stated, ‘I’ve done all I can do’ to fix the border catastrophe. Today, he’ll announce an executive action using the same authority he denied having,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said ahead of the Tuesday announcement. “If he was actually concerned about our wide-open border, he would have acted a long time ago.”
Johnson went on to say the new border actions are unlikely to dramatically change the situation.
“It took [Biden] 1,231 days to start using executive authority to combat the southern border crisis,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Tuesday. “But his order would still allow more than 900,000 people to cross the border every year. The American people are not fools. They know this is too little, too late.”
Biden’s border orders go into effect with months to go before the 2024 election. A May ABC News/Ipsos poll found Biden trailing his leading 2024 opponent, former Republican president Donald Trump, by 17 points in terms of trust handling immigration and border security.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
