President Joe Biden’s executive action on the border is having little effect on the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Biden signed the executive order on June 4 to restrict asylum significantly at the southern border, seeking to address a major liability for his reelection campaign. The order triggers a halt on asylum processing when arrests for illegal entry reach 2,500 per day. It took immediate effect since daily figures were already higher than that.
The move marked a shift to the right on immigration for Biden, following criticism from Republicans that he has failed to tamp down on the record influx of migrants crossing into the U.S. on his watch. Polls show that immigration is a top concern for voters ahead of November’s election, set to be a rematch of the 2020 race between Biden and former President Donald Trump.
It immediately sparked a backlash and comparisons to Trump’s policies as president. It uses executive authority that the Republican once used to ban people from some predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. early in his administration.
Early data shows that the executive action has had effect on the number of illegal crossings at the border so far, according to NewsNation.
The number of encounters along the southern border on the three days before the execution action took effect topped 3,500, the outlet reported. The data was provided by sources from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
On June 5, the first full day after the announcement, border agents apprehended about 4,000 migrants trying to illegally cross into the U.S. The number of daily encounters dipped only slightly over the next three days, while the number of migrants in custody increased.
The White House and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been contacted for comment via email. A Trump spokesperson has also been contacted for comment via email.
Experts say that there is “only so much” that Biden could do to control the numbers at the border.
“There is only so much any president can do to manage border flows,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York, told Newsweek. “People flee their homes for many reasons, including persecution, war, climate change, and poverty. A presidential proclamation isn’t going to stop that.”
Only “a multipronged approach can manage migration effectively,” Yale-Loehr said. “Such an approach would include working with regional partners, establishing safe mobility offices to educate people about their visa options before they leave home, and increasing foreign aid to improve economies so people don’t need to leave home to survive. The Biden administration is trying all these actions. It will just take time to see any meaningful results.”
Elora Mukherjee, a law professor and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School in New York City, told Newsweek that congressional action is needed to address border issues.
“Biden’s executive order puts thousands of lives at risk and does not fix our broken immigration system,” Mukherjee said.
“Turning our backs on refugees is shameful, immoral, and at odds with America’s highest ideals. The executive order has unsurprisingly been criticized from all sides.”
Biden, while announcing the executive action, said Republicans had left him with no choice but to take executive action after tanking bipartisan legislation that would have overhauled the asylum system to provide faster and tougher immigration enforcement at Trump’s urging.
“I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to actually get the kind of system we have now—that’s broken—fixed, to hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges,” Biden said. “But Republicans have left me with no choice.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said it intends to challenge the executive action in court.
“We need solutions to address the challenges at the border, but the administration’s planned executive actions will put thousands of lives at risk,” Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer at the ACLU, said in a statement last week. “They will not meet the needs at the border, nor will they fix our broken immigration system.”
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