WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly exploited by former president Donald Trump to unilaterally carry out a broad crackdown on the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.
Administration blocked by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month explored options that President Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, several officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are far from finalized, and it’s unclear how the administration would craft such executive actions in a way that would withstand inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private discussions underway at the White House.
Exploring such avenues by Biden team highlights pressure The president faces elections this year on immigration and borders, which are among his biggest policy commitments since taking office. For the moment, the White House hammered congressional Republicans for refusing to act on border legislation demanded by the Republican Party, but the administration is also aware of the political perils that high numbers of migrants could pose to the president and is scrambling to understand how Biden could alleviate the problem through it -even.
White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández stressed that “no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the meaningful policy reforms and additional resources that Congress can provide and that Republicans have rejected.” “.
“The administration has spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make meaningful policy reforms and provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, rejected what border agents said they needed, then gave themselves a two-week vacation. »
Arrests for illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border halved in January, from record levels in December to the third lowest month of Biden’s presidency. But officials fear those numbers could eventually rise again, particularly as the November presidential election approaches.
The immigration authority the administration has been looking into is outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president broad latitude to block the entry of certain immigrants to the United States if doing so would be “detrimental” to the national state. interest of the United States.
Trump, who is likely the Republican nominee to face Biden this fall, has repeatedly relied on the 212(f) power during his term, including its controversial ban on banning travelers from Muslim-majority countries. Biden reversed this ban on his first day in office by executive order.
But how Biden would deploy that power to address his own immigration challenges is currently under review, and it could be used in a variety of ways, according to people familiar with the discussions. For example, the ban could come into effect when the number of border crossings reaches a certain number. That echoes a provision in the Senate border deal, which would have activated migrant expulsions if the number of illegal border crossings reached more than 5,000 per day over a five-day average.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also called on Biden to use the 212(f) authority. Yet the comprehensive immigration overhaul that Biden also introduced on his first day in office — and which the White House continues to tout — includes provisions that would effectively curtail a president’s powers to ban immigrants under that authority .
