United States President Joe Biden is reportedly considering plans for executive action that would prevent migrants who illegally cross the border from claiming asylum.
The rumored decision could suspend longtime guarantees that give anyone who steps foot onto U.S. soil the right to ask for a safe haven. The plan would also put into effect a key policy written in a bipartisan bill that Republican lawmakers thwarted earlier this month.
Joe Biden on the Border Crisis
The situation comes even though the bill itself had some of the most significant border security restrictions that Congress has contemplated in years. The bill would have essentially shut down the nation's border to new entrants if there were more than an average of 5,000 migrants who tried to illegally cross every day in the course of a week or if more than 8,500 tried to cross on any given day.
The executive action that the White House is said to be considering now would have a similar trigger for blocking asylum to new migrants. The people who have knowledge of the proposal spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, as per the New York Times.
If the move is enacted, it would echo a 2018 effort by former United States President Donald Trump to block migration. That particular effort was assailed by Democratic lawmakers and blocked by federal courts.
While such action would no doubt face legal challenges, the fact that the president himself is considering it shows just how far he is willing to shift on immigration since coming into office. He initially promised a more humane system following his predecessor's presidency.
The Democratic president has taken a much harder line as the number of people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border has reached record levels. Additionally, the chronically underfunded and understaffed asylum system has reached a breaking point.
For years, the handling of the border has dogged Bden as thousands of migrants arrived at the border. There has not been any final decision made yet on the action under consideration, which involves using an authority known as 212f between ports of entry to curb unlawful border crossings, according to CNN.
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Action Under Consideration
One official said that the administration often evaluates actions that could be taken but noted that they do not always move forward. It remains unclear how the proclamation under discussion would actually be executed and what would be different from what the Trump administration enacted during its time.
A spokesperson for the White House did not comment on the actions that are said to be under consideration. Angelo Fernandez Hernandez said that the administration has spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades.
He added that no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources that Congress is capable of providing and that Republican lawmakers rejected.
The actions under consideration are expected to anger Latino groups and the progressive wing of Biden's party. The latter has expressed alarm about some of the policy changes that the president has been considering, said Axios.
