WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden unveiled plans Tuesday to impose immediate significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the White House seeks to neutralize immigration as a political imperative ahead of the elections in November.
The White House detailed the long-awaited presidential proclamation signed by Biden that would ban migrants from being granted asylum if U.S. officials believe the southern border is overwhelmed. The Democratic president has been considering unilateral action for months, especially after the collapse of a bipartisan border security deal in Congress that most Republican lawmakers rejected at the urging of Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
The order will come into effect when the number of border clashes between ports of entry reaches 2,500 per day, senior government officials said. That means Biden’s order should take effect immediately because that figure is now higher than the daily average. The restrictions would be in effect until two weeks after the daily number of encounters is at or below 1,500 per day between ports of entry, below a seven-day average. These figures were first reported Monday by The Associated Press.
Once this order is in effect, migrants who arrive at the border but express no fear of returning to their home countries will be subject to immediate removal from the United States within a matter of days or even hours. These migrants would face penalties such as a five-year ban from re-entering the US, as well as possible criminal charges.
Meanwhile, anyone who expresses fear or intent to seek asylum will be screened by a U.S. asylum officer, but at a higher level than what is currently used. If they pass the screening, they can pursue more limited forms of humanitarian protection, including the UN Convention against Torture.
Biden’s order was detailed by four senior administration officials who insisted on anonymity to describe the efforts to reporters. The directive comes as the number of migrants encountered at the border has fallen steadily since December, but senior administration officials nevertheless justified the order, arguing that the numbers are still too high and that the figures could increase in better weather, when meeting numbers traditionally increase.
Yet many questions and complications remain about how Biden’s new directive would be implemented.
For example, the Biden administration already has an agreement with Mexico in which Mexico agrees to accept up to 30,000 citizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela each month once they are denied entry from the U.S., and senior administration officials say this will continue under This order. But it is unclear what happens to nationals of other countries who are turned away under Biden’s directive.
Senior officials also acknowledged that the administration’s goal of quickly deporting migrants is complicated by insufficient funding from Congress to do so. The government also faces certain legal restrictions when it comes to detaining migrant families, although the government said it would continue to adhere to these obligations.
The legal authority Biden is relying on falls under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows a president to restrict entry for certain migrants if it is deemed “detrimental” to the national interest. Senior officials expressed confidence that they could carry out Biden’s order despite threats from prominent legal groups to take the administration to court.
The senior administration officials emphasized that Biden’s proposal differs dramatically from Trump’s, which relied on the same provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Biden uses, including his 2017 directive to exclude citizens of Muslim-majority countries and his efforts in 2018 to put pressure on asylum policy.
For example, Biden’s order outlines several groups of migrants who would be exempt on humanitarian grounds, including human trafficking victims, unaccompanied minors and people with serious medical emergencies.
The directive would also exempt migrants who arrive in what senior officials call an orderly manner, including people who make arrangements with border officials at ports of entry using the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app. About 1,450 appointments are made every day via the app, which was launched last year.
The average number of daily arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico was last below 2,500 in January 2021, the month Biden took office. The last time the number of border contacts fell to 1,500 per day was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republicans in Congress, almost all of whom rejected the Senate’s bipartisan border proposal earlier this year, dismissed Biden’s order as nothing more than a “political stunt” designed to spur tougher immigration enforcement ahead of the demonstrate elections.
“All along he tried to convince us that there was no way he could fix the mess,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference. “Remember, he invented it.”
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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
