President Joe Biden received criticism from both Republicans and Democrats Tuesday as the White House announced a new executive order that will shut down the border once the number of illegal migrant apprehensions exceeds 2,500 per day.
The average number of illegal, daily border crossings remained above 4,000 in April, and for months, Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and former President Donald Trump, had called on Biden to use executive authority to close the border.
Those calls effectively scuttled bipartisan legislation in the Senate that would have also closed the border once apprehensions exceed 2,500. According to senior administration officials, Biden’s executive order will close the border once the rolling, seven-day average of migrant apprehensions exceeds 2,500 and will remain in effect until the rolling 14-day average falls below 1,500.
Republicans heartily criticized the president’s order Tuesday, even before it was published.
“Crooked Joe Biden is only pretending to secure the border because he’s tanking in the polls,” Trump’s campaign wrote Tuesday morning. “This crisis wasn’t borne only from Biden’s extreme weakness and incompetence, it was by design from the start.”
“Now, Crooked Joe Biden is pretending to secure the border with a toothless executive order that allows thousands of unvetted illegal aliens to enter every day,” the statement continues. “If Biden cared about securing our border, he could have left in place the successful Trump border policies that resulted in the safest and most secure border in history. There’s only one reason that Crooked Joe Biden is cosplaying with border security: his poll numbers are falling like a badly injured bird.”
Johnson claimed at his Tuesday press conference that Biden’s order “window dressing” “might make [the situation at the border] worse.”
“If he was concerned about the border, he would have done this a long time ago, and we don’t know what’s in this. The devil will definitely be in the details here,” he told reporters. “It’s absolute madness.”
“There has been nearly 10 million illegal crossings in just over three years under Biden,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) added Tuesday morning. “In the first three years of Trump, that number was 1.57 million illegal crossings. In the first three years of Obama, that number was 1.36 million illegal crossings. Why didn’t Biden do this 10 million migrants ago?”
“The Biden administration is planning to legalize at least 4,000 illegal border crossings per day — no questions asked,” Republican National Committee spokesman Jake Schneider predicted Monday night. “In 2019, Obama-Biden DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said 1,000 illegal border crossings per day ‘overwhelms the system. I cannot begin to imagine what 4,000/day looks like.’ We don’t have to imagine; under Crooked Joe Biden, it’s an everyday reality.”
Meanwhile, progressives also attacked the president for an apparent slide to the right on an emerging top issue for voters ahead of the 2024 election.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Semafor Monday night that she found Biden’s order “disappointing.”
“[It] just plays into the idea that somehow harsh enforcement is going to work. That was Trump’s approach,” she claimed. “We should be showing what the difference is.”
Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-CA), the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, similarly told reporters Tuesday that she was “disappointed” in Biden for caving to the Right.
“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 undocumented folks that have been here for a long time,” Barragan stated.
“You can build a wall as high as you want. You can make it hard to receive asylum if you want,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) stated bluntly. “It’s not going to sustainably reduce the number of people wanting to come to the United States for a number of reasons until you identify and address root causes.”
Instead, Padilla argues that Biden should be touting the slow but steady decline in border apprehensions in recent months.
“The numbers are down because we’ve engaged with governmental leaders in Mexico,” he claimed. “That needs to continue and we need to build on that by engaging additional countries in the hemisphere. That is a way forward.”
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Despite Biden’s order, senior administration officials reiterated to reporters that Congress must pass new immigration reform legislation to fully tackle border security.
“Everyone should be clear that all of the actions that I’ve just described cannot achieve the same result as the bipartisan security agreement that the congressional Republicans rejected,” one senior administration official said. “These actions do not provide additional critical personnel and funding or reforms needed to further secure our border. Congress still must act on that alternative.”
Rachel Schilke contributed to this report.