Approximately two months before the election, the Biden-Harris administration looks to be trying to "cement" President Joe Biden's executive order from June, specifically when it comes to blocking asylum claims at the border. The New York Times reported such news on Wednesday, citing "[s]enior Biden administration officials."
The report, which mentions officials rather than Biden himself, notes that "officials are considering actions that would make President Biden’s tough but temporary asylum restrictions almost impossible to lift."
As is also mentioned:
Under the June order, the restrictions would lift when the number of people trying to cross illegally each day drops below 1,500 for one week, a concession meant to show progressive Democrats that Mr. Biden was merely responding to a surge at the border — not making a permanent change.
So far, the numbers have not fallen below that level. Now, administration officials want to extend that required period of lower crossings from one week to several weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the order.
White House officials say no decision has been made yet on changes to border policy. A spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security said the president’s earlier action had been successful in reducing illegal crossings by more than 50 percent, but declined to confirm that a new, tougher approach was under consideration.
That June executive order came after the president and the White House had previously insisted he didn't have the authority and instead tried to get Congress to pass a particularly bad border bill that they're still championing.
The executive order was blasted by former and potentially future President Donald Trump as well as other Republicans, especially since Biden had reversed the Trump administration's effective border policies starting from his very first day in office. In his first 100 days, he also issued 94 executive orders making the border crisis that much worse.
The 2,500 illegal immigrant crossings per day allowed by the executive order still is nearly 1,000,000 per year and far too much. As former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson warned in 2019, he knows that 1,000 apprehensions per day "overwhelms the system."
Listen Carefully ..
— Lawyerforlaws (@lawyer4laws) January 27, 2024
1000 a day .. 100,000 a Month is a Crisis
~Per Jeh Johnson Former DHS under Obama
💥Under Joe Biden-
In December Alone ..
Illegals entering U.S. exceeded 300,000 ~Per CBP
From 2019 ..pic.twitter.com/nBV55yDqBV
Helpful comparison: Obama's DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson says that if over 1000 illegal immigrants are apprehended in a single day, it "overwhelms the system."pic.twitter.com/3BWFaOnFjJ https://t.co/YwTFKmTCOX
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 22, 2023
While The New York Times tries to downplay the immigration numbers, speaking about a supposed "relative calm at the border," the rise in arrests at the southern border from July to August is mentioned just a few paragraphs later. The Biden-Harris administration saw a record-high amount of encounters last December, as the report was forced to admit, though it makes such a mention to try to downplay the August numbers. That record high from December was even achieved before the month officially ended.
Reporting from CBS News also cited two DHS officials and notes that the rule is not yet final:
Mr. Biden's partial asylum ban included a deactivation trigger, in which the policy would be discontinued if the seven-day average of daily illegal border crossings fell below 1,500. Under the proposed changes, the asylum restrictions would only be deactivated if the seven-day average of unlawful border crossings stay below 1,500 for 28 days, the DHS officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The changes being drafted would also include more migrants in the calculations used for the deactivation threshold. Currently, the calculations don't include crossings by unaccompanied migrant children who are not from Mexico. The updated calculations would include crossings by all unaccompanied children.
Those changes, if approved, would be enacted through regulations by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department. In June, the departments issued an interim regulation to implement Mr. Biden's decree. As part of the standard regulatory process, the departments are working on a final rule.
Luis Miranda, a DHS spokesperson, said officials "are continuing to process comments received relating to the Interim Final Rule published on June 7, 2024."
"We cannot comment on the content of a rule that is not yet final nor issued," Miranda added.
The New York Times also acknowledges that the move comes as Vice President Kamala Harris faces Trump in the November election. They'll also face off on the debate stage next Tuesday, though Harris may be trying to get out of it.
"The relative calm at the border comes as Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, tries to fend off Republican attacks over immigration, which has proved to be a major liability among voters," The New York Times mentioned.
Trump leads Harris in multiple polls when it comes to which candidate voters trust more to handle immigration, including in key swing states like Michigan.
Not long after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris as his replacement, CBS News/YouGov released a poll showing that a majority of voters, at 52 percent, believe that Harris' policies will "increase the number of migrants trying to cross the border." A plurality of her fellow Democrats, at 47 percent, said her policies "won't have an effect." Seventy-two percent of overall voters believe that Trump's policies will "decrease the number of migrants trying to cross the border," with a majority of every single demographic polled saying so. Even 53 percent of Democrats believe that will be the case.
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