Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg dodged questions regarding the executive actions President Joe Biden is seemingly avoiding amid the border crisis.
Buttigieg appeared on CBS Mornings on Thursday as a precursor to the president’s State of the Union address. Anchor Tony Dokoupil asked the secretary why Biden hadn’t taken any executive action in light of a border security bill failing despite the president’s endorsement.
“Look, the president has taken a number of actions with the authority that he has. There are some things he’s not going to do, like family separation, because it’s wrong,” Buttigieg said. “There was a bipartisan deal to make it happen, and congressional Republicans killed it. I think that demonstrated that they would prefer to have the problem, which is politically useful, than the solution that most Americans, including the president of the United States, want to see happen.”
“But it almost seems like he wants the problem, too, because there are these things he could do that he’s not doing,” Dokoupil pushed back.
“Again, he’s doing everything that he responsibly can under the law as it now stands. He has called on Congress to update the law and send more funding, and so far, Congress has said no,” Buttigieg said. “We can talk about solutions, or we can just talk about the politics of the problem. He’s here tonight to talk about solutions.”
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Biden has spent his administration enacting over 90 executive orders to undo former President Donald Trump‘s border policies, among them Title 42, which restricted immigration amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, 242,587 migrants attempted to enter the U.S. This is in addition to the over 10 million immigrants who have reportedly entered the country illegally since Biden took office. It is the most recorded in that amount of time of any administration.
