President Joe Biden issued an order on Tuesday allowing him to shut down the US-Mexico border amid high numbers of daily crossings, as immigration emerges as a top voter concern in the 2024 presidential race.
The presidential proclamation will allow the United States to close the southern border to asylum seekers who cross into America between established ports of entry.
Biden had previously hinted that he would take such executive actions after a bipartisan deal to enact the first major immigration legislation in decades foundered, twice failing to pass the Senate earlier this year after Republicans came out against it, at the behest of former president Donald Trump.
In remarks delivered from the White House, Biden said he’d done “what Republicans in Congress refused to do” by taking steps to secure the US-Mexico border.
He pointed out the border security bill rejected by the GOP had been the product of negotiations that resulted in “a clear bipartisan deal that was the strongest border security agreement in decades” only to see it scuttled on orders from Trump.
“He told the Republicans … that he didn’t want to fix the issue. He wanted to use it to attack me,” Biden said, calling Trump’s gambit “a complete disservice to the American people who are looking for us to not to weaponize the border, but to fix it.”
Biden said he was moving past Republican obstruction by using his executive authority to do what he can to address the border, though he again noted he’d have preferred to have done so by signing bipartisan legislation.
“Today I’m announcing actions to bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Migrants will be restricted from receiving asylum at our southern border unless they seek it after entering through an established lawful process,” Biden said.
“If an individual chooses not to use our legal pathways, they choose to come without permission and against the law. They’ll be restricted from receiving asylum and staying in the United States. This action will help us gain control of our border, restore order into the process.”
The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said the new rules are part of an administration effort “to do what it can to strengthen border security in the wake of Congressional inaction.”
“This executive action is yet another step the Administration has taken within its existing authorities to deter irregular migration,” Mayorkas said before adding a caveat that the rules were “no substitute for much-needed reforms that are only possible through legislation.”
Under the rules set out in Biden’s proclamation, the border closure will take effect if more than 2,500 migrants cross in a single day — a number which has become commonplace in recent months. It will be suspended if crossings drop below 1,500 people.
During periods of suspension, anyone who crosses into the US from Mexico anywhere other than a legal port of entry would not be permitted to claim asylum “absent exceptionally compelling circumstances,” according to a senior Biden administration official.
Exemptions would apply to “children, victims of a severe form of trafficking, those experiencing an acute medical emergency or an imminent and extreme threat to life and safety,” as well as “other non-citizens who have a valid visa or some other lawful permission to enter the United States,” the official said.
The decision has met with backlash from progressive Democrats and immigration advocates, with some drawing similarities between Biden’s border rule and what former president Donald Trump attempted while in office.
At a press conference on Capitol Hill following Biden’s remarks, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal decried the president’s actions as him “trying to out-Republican the Republicans” and claimed that nothing the administration was doing would solve the problems presented by record migration along the US-Mexico border.
“If we want to address the situation at the border … then we have to reform our immigration system,” the Washington democrat said, adding immigration reform must include protections for “long-term undocumented” people who’ve been in the country without authorization, sometimes for years or decades.
California Senator Alex Padilla, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told The Independent that Biden’s actions appeared to be “paralleling some of what the Trump administration tried to do unsuccessfully”. Illinois Democrat Rep. Chuy Garcia, also told The Independent he was concerned that the asylum restrictions could be “eroding one of the things that sets us apart from every other country.”
Freshman Texas Democrat Representative Greg Casar noted an “enforcement-only approach” would not help Biden politically because it would not solve the root causes of record migration flows.
He also warned the president is falling into what he described as a “trap” set by Republicans, and said the way to make the border safe and take on cartels was to create legal pathways for migration and strengthen the asylum system.
A Biden official, who asked for anonymity to brief reporters candidly, pushed back on the suggestion the president’s immigration policy is comparable to Trump’s border policies.
The White House pointed to efforts to expand lawful pathways into the US through increased refugee admissions and an initiative under which asylum seekers can use a Customs and Border Protection smartphone app to facilitate appointments at legal ports of entry.
The administration has also worked to establish processing centers abroad, where potential asylum seekers can begin the process, rather than make their way to Mexico and cross illegally.
Republicans have criticized Biden’s immigration policy as too lax and have claimed that Biden’s efforts to backtrack on harsher Trump-era efforts triggered an influx of migrants at the US-Mexico border. GOP officials have also frequently traveled to the border to criticize Biden and earlier this year, House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, though the motion was tabled in the Senate.
Trump has regularly invoked inflammatory rhetoric about immigration, saying that the US is being “poisoned,” but has denied that he is invoking Nazi language, despite the historical record showing such language was frequently used by Hitler and other Nazi leaders.
Polling shows that most voters see immigration as a serious issue. A Gallup poll from last month showed that 27 percent of Americans say immigration is the most important problem facing the country, the top issue in its survey, ahead of the economy and inflation.