WASHINGTON — Facing mounting political pressure over the influx of migrants at the U.S. southern border, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday that will temporarily halt asylum applications once the average number of daily encounters between official ports of entry exceeds 2,500, a senior administration official said.
The shutdown would take effect immediately as that threshold has already been reached, a senior government official said. The border would only reopen once that number drops to 1,500. The president’s order would fall under Sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which suspend entry of noncitizens who unlawfully cross the southern border into the United States.
Senior administration officials said in a call with reporters on Tuesday that “individuals who cross the southern border unlawfully or without authorization are generally ineligible for asylum, barring exceptionally compelling circumstances, unless accepted by the proclamation.”
The officials said migrants who do not meet the requirement that they must have “credible fear” when seeking asylum will be removed immediately, and they “expect that we will remove those individuals within the next few days, if not hours.” ”
The White House relayed details of the long-awaited move to lawmakers on Monday, but confirmed details of the executive order Tuesday morning ahead of planned remarks from the president in the White House East Room along with mayors of several border cities.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said Texas State Representative Eddie Morales, Jr., whose district includes Eagle Pass, Texas. “One of a number of steps needed to secure the border.”
In 2018, the Trump administration tried to implement similar border restrictions, but courts blocked them. The Biden administration now expects to defend the executive order against legal challenges.
The executive order will also include some exceptions, including for unaccompanied children.
In a written statement, Donald Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Karoline Leavett, asserted that an exemption would “give the green light to child traffickers and sex traffickers,” while echoing the former president’s rallying cry that “the border invasion and migrant crime will not stop until Crooked Joe Biden has been deported from the White House.”
Republican lawmakers have blasted the move as too little, too late.
“(Biden) deliberately created a crisis at the border,” said Senator Kevin Cramer. R-ND. “(The executive action) carries more political risk than political benefit, especially because his own base is going to reject it.”
But the White House has repeatedly argued that it was Republicans in Congress who have failed to take action on immigration. Earlier this year, Trump urged Republican members of the House of Representatives to kill a bipartisan border funding bill negotiated in the Senate. At the time, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans said the Senate bill did not go far enough and argued that a tougher immigration bill in the House of Representatives was preferable.
“President Biden has led a historic opening of legal routes for individuals to, and including families, to enter the United States through a lawful process, including the CBP One mobile application to request an appointment to be present in a port of entry, as well as family reunification programs in countries across the region and a historic release process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans,” said a senior government official. “And so this measure that we are announcing today comes in addition to these legal paths,”
The executive action comes on the heels of a historic presidential election in Mexico and just as the campaign heats up in the US. According to a national CNBC poll from late March, Trump has a 30-point lead among registered voters when asked which candidate would handle immigration and border security better, including a 23-point lead among Latino voters.
Many immigrant advocates are outraged by the president’s stricter immigration policies, claiming the changes will cause chaos.
“It’s a betrayal of what we were told in his campaign four years ago,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the California-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “We were told that President Biden would restore humanity to our border… But what we are seeing is history repeating itself.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
