Joe Biden prepares order that would shut down asylum if daily average of 2,500 migrants arrive

Joe Biden. Pic/AFP

The White House is telling lawmakers that President Joe Biden is preparing to sign off on an executive order that would shut down asylum requests at the US-Mexico border once the average number of daily encounters hits 2,500 at ports of entry, with the border reopening only once that number declines to 1,500, according to several people familiar with the discussions. The impact of the 2,500 figure means that the executive order could go into immediate effect, because daily figures are higher than that now, reported news agency Associated Press.

The Democratic president is expected to unveil the actions -- his most aggressive unilateral move yet to control the numbers at the border -- at the White House on Tuesday at an event to which border mayors have been invited. Five people familiar with the discussions on Monday confirmed the 2,500 figure, while two of the people confirmed the 1,500 number. The figures are daily averages over the course of a week. All of the people insisted on anonymity to discuss an executive order that is not yet public. While other border activity, such as trade, is expected to continue, the 1,500 threshold at which the border would re-open for asylum seekers could be hard to reach. The last time the daily average dipped to 1,500 encounters was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Senior White House officials, including chief of staff Jeff Zients and legislative affairs director Shuwanza Goff, have been informing lawmakers on Capitol Hill of details of the planned order ahead of the formal rollout on Tuesday, reported Associated Press.

But several questions remain about how the executive order would work, particularly how much cooperation the US would need from Mexican officials to carry out the executive order. The president has been deliberating for months over how to act on his own after bipartisan legislation to clamp down on asylum at the border collapsed because Republicans defected from the deal en masse at the urging of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Biden continued to consider executive action even though the number of illegal crossings at the southern border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico. Biden administration officials had waited until after Mexico's presidential elections, held Sunday, to move on the US president's border actions. Mexico elected Claudia Sheinbaum, the nation's first female leader, and Biden said in a statement Monday that he was committed to "advancing the values and interests of both our nations to the benefit of our peoples". The two spoke on the phone Monday, although White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether they spoke about the pending order, reported Associated Press.

"We continue to look at all options on the table," Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with Biden on Air Force One on Monday evening. The executive order will allow Biden to declare that he has pushed the boundaries of his own power after lawmakers, specifically congressional Republicans, killed off what would have been the toughest border and asylum restrictions in some time. Biden's order is aimed at trying to head off any potential spike in border encounters that could happen later this year, closer to the November elections. For Biden's executive order, the White House is adopting some policies directly from the bipartisan Senate border deal, including the idea of limiting asylum requests once the encounters hit a certain number. The administration wants to encourage migrants to seek asylum at ports of entry by using the US Customs and Border Protection's CBP One app, which schedules about 1,450 appointments per day. Administration lawyers have been planning to tap executive powers outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives a president broad authority to block entry of certain immigrants into the US if it is deemed "detrimental" to the national interest. It is the same legal rationale used by Trump to take some of his toughest actions on migration as president. That has advocacy groups already preparing to challenge Biden's immigration order in court, reported Associated Press.

"We will need to review the (executive order) before making final litigation decisions," said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who led several of the most high-profile challenges to Trump's border policies. The White House is also sure to encounter vocal resistance from many Democratic lawmakers. California Senator Alex Padilla, an outspoken critic of the Senate's earlier border bill, said the pending executive order was "just not the solution we need and it's very incomplete as a strategy". Padilla, who was also briefed by the White House on the proposal, wants an approach that works with countries throughout Latin America to address the poverty and unrest that drives migration to the US. Rep Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who said he was briefed on the plan, said he wishes the White House would've taken executive action a long time ago and said that cooperation from Mexico would continue to be critical as the administration implements the order. "If you think about the logistics, where else can they go?" Cuellar said.

(With inputs from Associated Press)