President Biden on Tuesday announced a long-awaited executive action aimed at stemming the flow of migrants crossing the Southern border, but the move is already taking fire from the left, the right, and from advocacy groups who plan to challenge it in court.
Biden’s order will shut down border crossings when the seven-day average surpasses 2,500. The shut down would end once the average dips to 1,500 a day. Daily encounters haven’t been that low since the early days of the pandemic in July of 2020.
At a press conference, Biden blamed former President Trump and Congressional Republicans, saying they left him with no choice but to act on his own. Trump opposed a bipartisan border security bill that failed twice in the Senate this year.
“Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to actually get the kind of system we have now that’s broken, fixed. To hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges. But, Republicans left me no choice.”
Still, the political fallout doesn’t cut strictly along partisan lines.
Only hours after the announcement, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would challenge the order in court, likening it to the Trump administration’s “asylum ban.”
Biden pushed back on that interpretation, saying his order does not go as far as Trump’s.
“I will never separate children from their families at the border, I will not ban people from this country because of their religious benefits, I will not use the US military to go into neighborhoods all across the country and pull millions of people out of their homes, away from their families and put them into detention camps…as my predecessor says he will do.”
But some liberal Democrats are seething over the order, saying it does not give adequate protections to vulnerable migrants or create new legal pathways for migration.
“I’m disappointed that this is a direction that the president has decided to take. We think it needs to be paired with positive actions and protections for undocumenteds, folks that have been here for a long time,” said Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Lawmakers expect legal challenges to pile up.
“He’s asserting authorities that I don’t think he has,” said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
The Biden administration faces tricky politics on an issue that has long-vexed Washington.
Polls show immigration and border security are top of mind for voters, with Biden and Democrats perpetually trailing on the issue.
Republicans piled on, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) calling the order “weak.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a top contender to be Trump’s running mate, took to X to call Biden’s border plan a “joke.”
“Even if Biden actually enforced it fully (which he won’t) it would still allow close to a million people a year to cross illegally ON TOP OF the 10 million he has already allowed in over the last 3 years.”
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