According to the Associated Press, Biden may use executive powers to invoke Section 212(f) of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to deny entry to anyone deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
Former President Donald Trump previously used these powers to ban entry to the country for all individuals residing in Muslim-majority countries, something Biden overturned on his first day in office
It’s rumored that Biden’s executive order would restrict migrants’ ability to claim asylum in the US if they crossed the border illegally.
What Is in the Bi-Partisan Border Security Bill?
Biden’s rumored executive order is believed to achieve a similar goal as the $118 billion bipartisan border security bill that congressional Republicans blocked earlier in the month, which would have vastly expanded detention at the border and sped up humanitarian asylum programs, as well as made it harder for people to qualify for asylum if they entered the country illegally, and extend the border wall.
However, the most contentious part of the bill was proposals that would stop processing applications at the border if the number of illegal crossings exceeded an average of 5,000 per day per week– a threshold that current illegal crossing numbers suggest would likely have been triggered as soon as the bill passed.
The bill also included foreign aid provisions, which would have provided $60 billion to Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel’s war against Palestine, $9 billion for humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and nearly $5 billion to US Indo-Pacific trade partners.
Immigration Key Election Battleground for Biden
Since the demise of the border security bill, Biden has hammered Republicans over immigration in an attempt to sway voters who traditionally believe that Democrats and the current administration are soft on immigration.
After the bill was defeated in the house, Biden blasted Trump for trying to use immigration as a cudgel to beat democrats with in the upcoming election, after the former president came out forcefully against it before the details of the bipartisan bill had even been formally announced.
“Now, all indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason. Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically,” Biden said. “He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it.”
Poll Reveals Biden Is Doing a Bad Job on Immigration
A recent poll by the Pew Research Centre found that 80% of respondents thought the government is doing a “bad job” of handling the influx of migrants from Mexico into the US. 89% of Republicans believe Biden is doing a “very bad job,” while 73% of Democrats also said the government was failing on immigration—the highest since Biden took office.
Meanwhile, 45% of respondents felt the situation at the border was at a crisis point, and 32% stated they were a major problem.
However, there were vast differences in how Americans viewed the migrants at the border. 76% of Republicans believe that immigrants think it will be easy to stay in the country once they arrive, which is a significant factor. While only 39% of Democrats believe this is the case.
Democrats also are almost twice as likely to believe that violence in migrants’ home countries is a major contributing factor to their attempting to come to the US. 79% of Democrats ( and left-leaning independents) think this is the case, as opposed to only 49% of Republicans.
Attempted Crossings Hit Record-High
According to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, border patrol officers had more than 300,000 encounters with migrants attempting to cross into the US from Mexico in December, an all-time high eclipsing the previous record of almost 270,00 in September 2023.
However, the CBP found that illegal crossings into the US from Mexico halved in January but still found that more than 176,000 migrants attempted to enter the country.
No Executive Order Yet
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told USA Today that no decision had been made on what executive actions, if any, would be taken.
Angelo Fernández Hernández, assistant White House press secretary, stated: “No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected,” adding, “We continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border.”
