President Joe Biden on Tuesday issued an executive order that gives him the authority to limit crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border when a certain threshold is reached, an aggressive move to restrict encounters at the border — which have declined in recent months — and address a key issue on voters’ minds ahead of November’s election.
The president’s actions will bar migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum, shutting down the border when encounters hit a certain number, according to a senior administration official.
“We must face a simple truth, to protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now,” Biden, flanked by members of Congress as well as local and state officials, said while announcing the executive order at a White House event on Tuesday.
“The simple truth is, there is a worldwide migrant crisis and if the United States doesn’t secure our border, there is no limit to the number of people who may try to come here,” he continued.
The restrictions will go into effect when the number of daily illegal crossings tops 2,500, and will stay in effect until two weeks after there are seven consecutive days of less than 1,500 daily encounters between ports of entry, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security. There are some humanitarian exceptions, including for unaccompanied children, victims of trafficking, an acute medical emergency or an imminent threat to life or safety.
Migrants who make appointments using the CBP One app, created by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection which handles roughly 1,450 appointments per day, would also be exempt.
Daily encounters are higher than the 2,500 figure, so it could be implemented as soon as it’s signed.
A senior administration official said that the goal of Biden’s actions is to “significantly increase consequences for those who cross the southern border unlawfully, without authorization.”
The president brought in members of Congress, governors and mayors who have been vocal on the issue to join him for the announcement. Among those in attendance was Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro mayorkas, about a dozen Texas mayors, a Texas sheriff, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.
The White House hailed the fact that “most” of the guests at Tuesday’s event are from border communities. While not on the border, New York has grappled with an influx of migrants, struggling to provide shelter and process asylum claims.
“They know the border is not a political issue to be weaponized,” Biden said of those he invited on Tuesday. “They don’t have time for the games played in Washington.”
It’s the most restrictive immigration policy put into place by any modern Democratic president, and Biden’s first major step to address border security since Republicans killed a bipartisan border security compromise earlier this year.
“I’ve come here today to do what the Republicans in Congress refuse to do: take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said to open his remarks.
The legislation – negotiated over weeks by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Republican, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent — died after former President Donald Trump came out against it.
“It was the strongest border security agreement in decades but then, Republicans in Congress – not all but – walked away from it. Why? Because Donald Trump told him to,” Biden said, adding he didn’t want to fix the issue but rather use it to attack him.
“That’s the height of hypocrisy and the most cynical type of politics you can possibly expect,” Suozzi told reporters of Republicans’ response to the border bill after Tuesday’s event.
Biden on Tuesday also did not hold back in criticizing his predecessor and 2024 competition, referencing past comments and policies of Trump.
“I’ll never demonize immigrants, I’ll never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of the country and further I’ll never separate children from their families at the border,” the president said.
Prior to the announcement on Tuesday, Trump’s campaign panned Biden’s plan as “mass amnesty to destroy America.” On a press call, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan and Trump aides Jason Miller and Stephen Miller framed the order as part of a conspiratorial scheme by Biden and Democrats to flood the country with immigrants and turn them into Democratic voters. That claim is in line with the Great Replacement Theory, a false conspiracy theory that has inspired racist mass shootings in the U.S. and elsewhere.
"The other thing that's very important about this plan is it is a pro-child slavery, pro-child trafficking, pro-child sexual servitude," Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller said on the call prior to Biden's announcement, citing the exceptions in the executive order for unaccompanied minors and victims of trafficking. "So the message to the cartels and the smugglers is you have the greenest of green lights to smuggle and traffick children into this country into various forms of servitude, slavery, sex trafficking, labor trafficking and other forms of abuse, imprisonment and torture."
The action will no doubt face legal challenges, but an administration official said that they “look forward” to defending the rule. The American Civil Liberties Union already vowed Tuesday that it would sue the Biden administration over the order, saying it puts "tens of thousands of lives at risk."
"This action takes the same approach as the Trump administration's asylum ban," the ACLU wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. "We will be challenging this order in court."
“I would expect them to sue,” Suozzi said when asked about potential legal challenges. “That’s why Congress has to act.” He added that the White House “vetted it” and “thought it through” on how to pass legal challenges.
The move was met with some support from Biden’s own party, particularly from those who backed the bipartisan border bill killed by Republicans.
At the White House on Tuesday afternoon, Kelly called the order "a very good step forward" that will "make a big difference" at the border.
“It’s important that the president is planning to take decisive action given the fact that extreme MAGA Republicans have decided to try to weaponize the challenges at the border,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., at a press conference Tuesday morning.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chided his Republican colleagues for not taking action to enact legislation to address the border, saying that it "would have been the more effective way to go."
Schumer went on to say that Biden preferred to take the legislative route to address immigration, but: "given how obstinate Republicans have become, turning down any real opportunity for strong border legislation, the president is left with little choice but to act on his own."
The chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate House Democrats, called Biden's action an "overdue step" but said that more needed to be done in order to secure the border, calling on the White House and other members of Congress to take action.
"This job is far from over," declared Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, Maine Rep. Jared Golden and Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola, along with North Carolina Rep. Don Davis.
Biden on Tuesday said the executive order is “not enough” and called on Congress to approve funding to hire new border security agents, immigration judges, asylum officers and machines that can screen and stop fentanyl from being smuggled into the U.S.
But progressive Democrats and Republicans alike decried the action — though for wildly different reasons.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Senate GOP leadership, questioned the timing of why Biden waited to unveil the order before responding to his own query by charging: “The simple answer is he’s not serious.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed a similar sentiment, calling Biden's action "window dressing" while charging that the president and Mayorkas, who his chamber impeached earlier this year, "engineered" a border crisis.
"If he was concerned about the border, he would have done this a long time ago," Johnson said, while acknowledging that he had not yet seen the president's order. "The devil will definitely be in the details here, I can assure you."
In a joint statement, House GOP leadership chalked the move up to a “political stunt.”
Polls show immigration has increasingly become a main concern of voters. A recent poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a majority of adults think Biden’s presidency has hurt the country on immigration and border security.
Meanwhile, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called Biden’s actions “extremely disappointing.”
“Democrats cannot buy into cruel enforcement-only measures that have failed for 30 years,” she wrote on social media ahead of the announcement. “We need real, humane reform that expands legal pathways.”
“I'm disappointed that this is a direction that the President has decided to take,” California Rep. Nanette Barragan, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told reporters on Tuesday. “We think it needs to be paired with positive actions and protections for undocumented folks that have been here for a long time.”
“For those who say the steps I’ve taken are too strict, I say to you be patient,” Biden adding that in the “weeks ahead” he will speak about how the U.S. can make our immigration system more fair.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” he added. “We have to act.”
Spectrum News' Joseph Konig contributed to this report.