President Biden considering executive action on the border, powers once used by Trump

WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden is considering new executive actions to crack down on record migration at the southern border after congressional Republicans this month blocked border legislation backed by the White House.

A Biden administration official, who spoke to USA TODAY on the condition of anonymity, stressed no final decisions have been made regarding what additional executive actions, if any, could be taken.

The Biden administration is looking at provisions of federal immigration law routinely tapped by former President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported, in a move that could invite a backlash from progressives and immigration advocates.

Biden, according to the AP, is considering potential action under Section 212(f) of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to deny immigration for anyone deemed "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, cited the same provision when he banned the entry of individuals from majority-Muslim nations. Biden took action to overturn Trump's ban on his first day in office.

The New York Times reported that Biden's executive order would restrict migrants' ability to claim asylum in the U.S. if they crossed the border illegally − a similar goal as the bipartisan border that congressional Republicans blocked.

Immigration issue is key to Biden reelection campaign

The legislation, which was killed in the Senate, would have given the Department of Homeland Security the power to shut down the border to migrants crossing illegally when daily crossings exceed a daily average of 4,000 in any one-week period.

And if migrant border encounters surpass an average of 5,000 a day − a threshold now met − DHS would have been required to close the border to migrants seeking to cross without prior authorization between ports of entry.

Since the demise of the border bill, Biden has hammered Republicans over inaction on the border in a move to turn immigration − an issue in which Democrats are typically playing defense − into a win for his reelection campaign.

“No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected," Angelo Fernández Hernández, assistant White House press secretary, said in a statement. "We continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border."

Border patrol encounters on the rise

In December, the U.S. Border Patrol had more than 250,000 encounters with migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.

That was the highest monthly total on record, easily eclipsing the previous peak of about 224,000 encounters in May 2022, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

However, the number of people crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico dropped by 50 percent in January, according to CBP.

The issue has divided Congress and is emerging as a major issue for voters in the 2024 presidential election.

According to a recent poll by the Pew, 8 in 10 U.S. adults say the government is doing a very or somewhat bad job dealing with the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. at the border with Mexico. And nearly as many say the situation is either a “crisis” (45%) or a “major problem” (32%) for the U.S.

There are also partisan differences in the way Americans view the reason for migrants coming to the border, according to Pew. About 76% of Republicans say the belief that U.S. immigration policies will make it easy to stay in the country once they arrive is a major factor. About half as many Democrats (39%) say the same.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are 30 percentage points more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to cite violence in their home countries as a major reason for migration to the U.S. (79% vs. 49%).

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison.

Contributing: Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Biden weighs executive action on southern border