President Joe Biden is slated to take broad executive action to end the crisis that has rocked the southern border since he took office in 2021, a move that goes against his recent claims that he may lack the authority act unilaterally.
The White House is expected to announce an executive order Tuesday that effectively shuts down the U.S.-Mexico border to illegal immigration. Under the Biden administration, nearly 10 million non-U.S. citizens have been encountered attempting to enter the United States.
The White House has not yet publicly disclosed details of the order, but it is expected to resemble a Senate proposal that House Republicans came out against earlier this year that sets specific levels of immigrant crossings that would trigger a border shutdown.
Republicans have blamed Biden for the historically high levels of illegal immigration for rolling back Trump-era immigration policies after taking office. They’ve insisted Biden has the power to end the border crisis without Congress, while the Biden administration has insisted a legislative solution is needed.
Biden said in April there’s no guarantee he has the legal authority to shut down the border and therefore Congress should act.
Now Biden’s proposal would entail shutting down asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border once the average number of daily encounters hits 2,500 at ports of entry, meaning it could take effect immediately. The border could reopen if the daily average over the course of a week declines to 1,500, according the Associated Press.
The order would affect adult immigrants who cross the border and seek asylum. The changes are expected to be in line with limitations that were floated earlier this year in a Senate package that ultimately failed to gain Republican support. In that proposal, senators had floated barring immigrants from seeking asylum at the border (not just ports of entry) if more than 8,500 people were arrested in a single day or an average of 5,000 per apprehended in a week.
Children are expected to be exempt from the restrictions, which could cause Mexican smuggling organizations to increasingly traffic them to the border, knowing that they will not be turned away.
Any executive action could face lawsuits from groups that perceive it as an overreach of authority since Congress has the ability to determine immigration levels.
Biden’s action stands at odds with statements that he and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have made for the past three years. Both have maintained that “only Congress can fix our broken immigration system,” as Mayorkas stated on May 23.
Biden visited Brownsville, Texas, in February to tour the border, the second time in his five decades as an elected official.
Ahead of the February visit, the White House said that “Congress must act” to address the border, distancing itself from any possibility of executive action.
After the Senate failed again to pass a border security measure last month, the White House is now going it alone to address what has become the No. 1 issue among U.S. voters nationwide: immigration.
At no time in history during any White House administration has that many immigrants come to the border, even in two terms.
Republicans have accused the Biden administration numerous times in congressional hearings of failing to respond adequately to the unprecedented surge of immigrants over the past 40 months.
On Monday, the White House shot back at Republicans as being opposed to the Senate plan and executive action for political reasons.
“Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history. Instead, they put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security,” said a White House spokesperson.
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Encounters, which include non-U.S. citizens who either enter the country illegally or are deemed inadmissible at a port of entry, have remained between 192,000 and 371,000 per month since March 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
In the decade leading up to the Biden administration, encounters ranged from 40,000 to 80,000 per month.
Haisten Willis contributed to this report.
