Washington (Associated Press) President Joe Biden The Trump administration on Tuesday announced plans to implement immediate and significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the White House seeks to neutralize immigration as a political liability ahead of the presidential election. November Elections.
The White House released details of the long-awaited presidential proclamation signed by Biden, which stipulates that migrants will not be granted asylum if U.S. authorities determine they are illegal immigrants. Southern Border It’s overwhelming. The Democratic president has been considering unilateral action for months, especially after a bipartisan border security deal collapsed in Congress. Most Republicans reject it This was at the request of former President Donald Trump, who is considered a potential Republican presidential nominee.
“The border is not a political issue that should be weaponized,” Biden said, adding that he had hoped for more thorough and permanent legislative action but “Republicans gave me no choice.”
Instead, he said he would overcome Republican obstruction and “do what I can to address the border issue,” while also asserting that he “believes immigration has always been the lifeblood of America.”
“This action will help strengthen border control and restore order to the process,” the president said.
According to administration officials, the order will take effect when the number of border encounters between ports of entry reaches 2,500 per day, meaning that this number is higher than the current daily average, so Biden’s order should take effect immediately.
The restrictions will remain in place until two weeks after the seven-day average number of daily contacts between ports of entry falls below 1,500. The Associated Press first reported on monday.
Once the order goes into effect, migrants who arrive at the border but do not fear returning to their home countries will be summarily removed from the US within days or even hours. These migrants will face penalties including a potential five-year ban from re-entering the US and possible criminal prosecution.
Those who express such fears or a desire for asylum would be subject to stricter screening by U.S. asylum judges and, if they pass, could seek more limited humanitarian protections, including those covered by the UN Convention against Torture.
The directive comes as the number of migrants encountered at the border has been steadily declining since December, but administration officials have justified it by arguing that the numbers are still too high and that the numbers could spike with better weather, when migrant encounters typically increase.
But many questions and complexities remain about how Biden’s new directive will be implemented.
For example, the Biden administration has already Agreement with Mexico Under the order, Mexico agreed to accept up to 30,000 citizens per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who were denied entry from the United States, a policy that administration officials have said will continue under the order. But it is unclear what will happen to citizens of other countries who are denied entry under Biden’s directive.
Four administration officials, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the effort, acknowledged that the administration’s goal of quickly deporting immigrants has been complicated by a lack of funding from Congress. The administration also faces certain legal constraints on detaining migrant families, but said the administration will continue to comply with those obligations.
The legal authority Biden is exercising comes from Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to restrict the entry of certain immigrants if they are deemed “detrimental” to the national interest. Administration officials expressed confidence that Biden’s order can be carried out, despite threats from prominent legal groups to sue the administration over the order.
“We’re going to sue,” said Lee Gerentz, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who won a similar lawsuit under the Trump administration. “The asylum ban is just as unlawful as it was when Trump failed.”
Senior administration officials said Biden’s proposal Trump’sis relying on the same provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Biden is using, including in his 2017 directive. Banning citizens of Muslim-majority countries from entering the country and efforts in 2018 to crack down on asylum.
Biden’s executive order outlines several groups of migrants who will be exempt for humanitarian reasons, including victims of human trafficking, unaccompanied minors and people experiencing serious medical emergencies.
Trump said on his social media accounts Tuesday that Biden has “completely surrendered the southern border” and that the order was “all a sham.” June 27 Presidential Debate.
The order also exempts migrants who arrive in what a senior official called an “orderly manner,” including people who use U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app to schedule an appointment with a border patrol officer at a port of entry. About 1,450 appointments a day are scheduled through the app, which launched last year.
Immigrant advocates worry Biden’s plan will only increase already-month-long backlogs of migrants waiting to make appointments through the app, especially without a corresponding increase in funding for immigration authorities.
It may also be difficult for border officials to implement plans to quickly remove migrants when many staff are already helping at shelters or doing other humanitarian work, said Jenny Murray, president of the National Immigration Forum.
“Customs and Border Protection is understaffed and cannot handle the arrests in their current form, which will cause further chaos,” she said.
The last time the average number of daily apprehensions for illegally crossing from Mexico dipped below 2,500 was when Biden took office in January 2021. The last time border encounters dipped below 1,500 a day was in July 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican lawmakers have dismissed Biden’s executive order as nothing more than a political ploy to demonstrate stronger immigration enforcement ahead of the election.
“All this time he’s been trying to convince all of us that this mess can’t be fixed,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said at a news conference. “Let’s not forget that he engineered this mess.”
Biden said in January that he had “done everything he could” through his executive powers to control the border, but White House officials had been signaling for months that the president would still consider acting unilaterally. Democrats have said Biden waited months in hopes of passing legislation rather than taking independent action, and that his actions could easily be reversed by his successor.
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill could have been more effective, but “Republican intransigence forced the president to do it.”
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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
