(June 4, 2024, Washington, D.C.) After claiming for the past three years and five months that he lacks the authority to secure our borders, President Biden today acknowledged that he has had the authority all along. The problem is that the Executive Order he issued today is riddled with loopholes and falls far short of what is needed to end the illegal immigration crisis his policies triggered. This is yet another attempt by the administration to deceive the American public into believing that it is serious about securing our borders, halting mass illegal immigration and ending asylum abuse.
Upon close examination, the executive order, which includes a long list of exemptions, will do little to rectify the crisis:
Closing the border and expelling illegal migrants to Mexico will not be triggered until Border Patrol records 2,500 encounters on average over a seven-day period. Illegal aliens encountered between ports of entry are already restricted applying for asylum.
2,500 illegal aliens a day, though low by the standards of the Biden administration, is historically high and would amount to the entry of more than 900,000 illegal aliens a year.
The daily cap generally applies to illegal migrants encountered by Border Patrol. It exempts illegal aliens who are encountered and processed at ports of entry through the CBP One App.
The executive order doesn't apply to unaccompanied minors.
The executive order does not apply to any alien DHS decides to let in "based on the totality of the circumstances," or "urgent humanitarian, and public health interests."
The executive order does not apply to any alien who DHS authorizes to enter "due to operational considerations at the time of the entry or encounter that warranted permitting the noncitizen to enter."
The executive order does not end the administration's massive abuse of parole authority, under which at least 1.8 million illegal aliens have been allowed to enter the country during the past two years.
Mexico will only accept the return of 30,000 illegal migrants per month, a small fraction of the monthly encounters along the Southwest border. Additionally, third country migrants who claim a fear of persecution in Mexico will not be returned to that country. Inevitably, migrants will make this claim.
Today's executive order does not rescind or repeal any of the hundreds of other Executive Orders, policy memoranda or final rules issued over the past three and a half years that have weakened the nation's immigration enforcement capabilities.
The executive order does not reinstate other effective policies to deter people from making false asylum claims that President Biden canceled during his firsts weeks in office. These include Remain in Mexico and the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Central American governments.
"The clear intent of today's executive order is not to end mass illegal immigration and asylum abuse, but to make it less visible to the American public that is rightly alarmed by the administration's open-borders policies that have resulted in some 10 million illegal entries since January 20, 2021," stated Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
"Contrary to the president's claim, the order he signed will not shut down the border to illegal immigration or even slow it down in any meaningful way. President Biden has repeatedly challenged Congress to send a border and immigration enforcement bill to his desk to sign. Disingenuously, he has insisted on legislation that included massive amnesties for illegal aliens and loopholes that would render so-called enforcement provisions ineffective. Having finally acknowledged that we have an illegal immigration crisis on our hands, he should now challenge the leadership of his own party, which controls the Senate, to approve the House-passed H.R. 2, a bill that actually would secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws," Stein concluded.
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