Update: POLITICO revealed on Wednesday afternoon that "The Biden administration will propose new changes to the asylum system on Thursday, four people familiar with the matter told POLITICO."
Senate Democrats are also calling for more action to be taken on border security, though as Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut is prone to do, he's blasting Republicans for not being serious enough, all while he claims to want to revisit negotiations. It's worth reminding that the House passed HR 2, the Secure the Border Act, close to a year ago now, but that Senate Democrats won't take up the bill. It's also a move that Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the Republican negotiator, wasn't even aware of.
Murphy’s GOP counterpart Lankford said just now that he hasn’t discussed the matter recently with Murphy and said he was unaware of another push https://t.co/n0xsDAoyk5
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 8, 2024
Original: For months now, President Joe Biden has reportedly been going back and forth as to if he'll take executive action when it comes to doing something about the crisis at the southern border. Each time she's asked, though, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre produces an unhelpful kind of answer, and sticks to her preference for the bad border bill that was killed in February. Now, House Democrats are asking for the president to take action, as Fox News highlighted.
Late last month, Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Mary Peltola of Alaska, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Don Davis of North Carolina released a statement on the matter. The statement came not long after and highlighted the members' votes for foreign aid bill packages that were ultimately signed into law by the president.
The five members are facing tough reelection battles in November. This is even more relevant as the Fox News report mentions they've been flippant about such a crisis.
More recently, all but Gonzalez were among those who signed onto voting for H. RES. 1112, a resolution from Tony Gonzales (R-TX) which called out Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for having "created the worst border security crisis in the Nation’s history."
All Republicans and 13 Democrats voted in favor of the resolution. The other Democrats included Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Josh Harder of California, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, and Susie Lee of Nevada. Gonzalez was one of 191 Democrats who voted against the resolution.
Fox News, in a separate piece, highlighted comments from Democrats in favor of the bill. Like Biden and the White House have done, though, they still expressed support for the bad border bill:
"President Biden has failed to end the crisis at our southern border, so I voted for H.R. 3602 to do what he won’t: secure our border and stop the violent drug cartels pumping fentanyl into our country," Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wa., one of the Democrats who voted in favor of the resolution, told Fox News Digital.
The resolution states that "President Joe Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas have created the worst border security crisis in the Nation’s history."
Gluesenkamp Perez added that Biden should reinstate "Remain in Mexico," a policy that requires migrants seeking asylum in America to wait in Mexico while their application is waiting approval.
"We don’t need more political grandstanding," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "The Administration needs to do its job, and Congress needs to pass border security legislation that reflects our values and keeps us safe."
Another Democrat backing the GOP-led resolution, Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., agreed that "securing our border and addressing immigration challenges is a priority for me as well as for my constituents in Central and Northwestern Illinois" and that "we need to be doing a lot more to fix our broken immigration system, which is why I went to the southern border to see firsthand the work we have in front of us."
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., said there is a "political wedge" on the issue that needs to be put to an end.
"I agree with Republicans that we have a national security issue at the border – but we have to stop using the border as a political wedge issue and work together to address it," Craig told Fox in a statement. "It’s time for the House of Representatives to debate the Bipartisan Border Agreement put forth by the Senate earlier this year."
A spokesperson for Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, told Fox News Digital that the congressman is concerned about "deadly" fentanyl being brought across the southern border and making its way to his district in Maine.
"Congressman Golden believes that border security is national security. He is a member of the Bipartisan Drug Cartel Task Force and is concerned about the flow of deadly fentanyl across the border and into American communities, including in Maine. He has consistently called on Congress and the Biden administration to meaningfully address the crisis at the border," Goldman's team told Fox in a statement, adding that "the Congressman will continue pushing the administration to act."
Then on Tuesday, in a letter obtained by CBS News, 15 Democrats, led by Craig, urged Biden to take "immediately take further action to restore order at the Southern border and fix our broken immigration system." As the report also reminded, though, the members are "facing a tough campaign cycle."
The CBS News report included a statement from Angelo Fernández Hernández, a White House spokesperson, who also pointed to the border bill. The statement claimed that "congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, and rejected what border agents have said they need," and that "[w]e continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border."
The letter was also signed by Democratic Reps. Mike Levin of California, Davids, Hillary Scholten of Michigan, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Lee, Horsford, Patrick Ryan of New York, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, Kim Schrier of Washington, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan who is running for U.S. Senate, Greg Stanton of Arizona, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, and Val Hoyle of Oregon.
During the White House press briefing on Tuesday, a reporter asked for an update.
"Don’t have any announcement on any executive actions. Obviously, we look at all options," Jean-Pierre said, just as she's said before. "We believe the--the challenges at the border is a priority important to majority of Americans," she added, which is indeed the case, as it's often a top issue in the polls for voters. It's seriously hurting Biden in the polls, who has just a 32.7 percent approval rating on the issue, according to RealClearPolling. Former and potentially future President Donald Trump is also leading Biden on this top issue in numerous polls.
"And that’s why the President took action on his first day in office and put forward a comprehensive legislation," Jean-Pierre even claimed. When it comes to that "action on his first day in office," Biden indeed signed an order on his first day in office that terminated the emergency at the southern border and the funding for the wall at the southern border. He's also taken more actions since then to make the border less secure.
Jean-Pierre mentioned the bad border bill that was released in February and killed days later. "Now, there is indeed a bipartisan Senate agreement that should move forward but was held back because of the former president saying that it would hurt him and asked Republicans to reject it," she pointed out, as if it couldn't also have failed because it would have done nothing to fix the problem. "We want to see that move forward. And we’re going to continue to call on Congress to move that forward," she added, making clear at least this is the kind of answer we're going to continue to hear.
She even called it "the fairest, the toughest law if he was able to be given that opportunity--and it would pass, obviously--for him to sign it," even though Senate Republicans killed it and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has made clear that the bill is dead on arrival in the House.
"Any other actions that may come out of this administration, we always look at all--at all potential actions that we can take," Jean-Pierre also offered, "but the number one way we believe to move forward is to move with that bipartisan Senate agreement."
Q: “On the southern border and border security, can you give us an update on executive actions that the president is planning….”
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 7, 2024
KJP: “Don’t have any announcement on any executive actions…” pic.twitter.com/XtKuJgyQRC
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