Biden’s Immigration Order Too Little, Too Late for Conservatives — and Too Far for Progressives

Washington, D.C. — President Joe Biden finally issued an executive order on Tuesday to address the border crisis that’s unfolded on his watch — but the move isn’t winning him points with conservatives who have been urging him to take action for years, nor with progressives who feel he’s abandoned vulnerable migrants.

Biden’s immigration order directs Customs and Border Protection to close the southern border between officially designated ports of entry when the average number of daily crossings surpasses 2,500 over a weeklong period. After the asylum shutdown takes effect, the border can’t be reopened until two weeks after it is determined that average crossings have dropped below 1,500 for seven consecutive days.

Biden issued the executive order after insisting since taking office that he was unable to take action to address the record number of illegal immigrants entering the country without legislative action. In announcing the order, Biden claimed that Republicans had left him “no choice” but to act unilaterally when they killed a Senate border deal that many hardline Republicans felt didn’t go far enough to stem illegal immigration.

“It’s pretty telling to me that it doesn’t work on the right and it doesn’t work on the left,” Representative Mike Flood (R., Neb.) told National Review on Wednesday. “What kind of games are we playing here? This seems like election politics.”

Flood encouraged the president to sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and “we’ll tell you exactly what you need to do” on the policy, he said.

Representative Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) harshly criticized the order, calling it a “joke.” Of what he’s read so far about the order, Donalds said it’s a “shame” that there are “too many loopholes” in its provisions.

“First of all, 2,500 a day is roughly 910,000 migrants coming into the country” a year under the new order, he told National Review, noting that exceptions are made for unaccompanied minors and immigrants who set up an asylum appointment via the CBP One app in order to enter the U.S. legally.

“Just do the math. You’re already getting close to 1.5 to 2 million people a year. Even if you took it at its best face, it’ll be 900,000 people. No other president has allowed 900,000 immigrants to come into the country, and that is the baseline of his executive order.”

Former president Donald Trump, whose opposition to the Senate border deal sealed its fate with Republicans, accused Biden of “pretending to finally do something about the border” in a video message posted after the order was announced.

Other groups of immigrants exempt from the executive measure include victims of human trafficking, immigrants with severe medical emergencies, and those facing imminent threats to their safety. If immigrants fail to convey fear of returning to their home countries to border officials, they could be immediately removed from the U.S. They could also face a five-year ban from re-entering the U.S. and potential criminal prosecution.

While Republicans attack Biden’s order as too little, too late, some members of the president’s own party have cast the order as a punitive betrayal of vulnerable migrants. Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass.), for example, said the U.S. “must address the root causes of record migration” and implored the “Biden administration to change course.”

“This administration and the U.S. Congress should adopt policies that manage large numbers of people seeking protection with fairness and humanity,” Markey said in a statement on Tuesday. “Pathways to citizenship, fair adjudication of asylum claims, limitations on detention, and more legal pathways to entry – any of these policies would help the executive branch manage the border and the reception of new arrivals in the interior.”

Senator Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) argued the order “undermined American values.”

“What we need instead are smart and strategic investments to reduce backlogs and wait times, address the root causes of migration, and open lawful pathways to migration,” Padilla said in a statement.

Other Democrats, including Representative Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), say they’re relatively supportive of Biden’s immigration policies.

“I’ve been very supportive generally of the president’s approach to immigration, which is to try to dramatically increase the possibilities for people getting into the country legally and dramatically reduce the opportunities for people to get into the country illegally,” Raskin told National Review. “That strikes me as the right approach.”

Raskin declined to comment directly on the asylum ban at this time, as he did not fully read the new order in detail. Neither Donalds nor Flood have read it yet.

The Biden administration is already facing at least one legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which vowed to file a lawsuit shortly after the order’s announcement. Nonetheless, senior administration officials said they would rigorously defend the executive action in court.

The president’s order falls under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the suspension of entries for immigrants if the entries are deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” The Trump administration invoked the same law to crack down on illegal immigration at the time.

Biden officials distanced their administration’s order from the former president’s, stressing that they included “important humanitarian and legal changes” evident in its humanitarian exceptions for certain groups of immigrants.

“There are several differences between the actions that we are taking today and Trump-era policies. The Trump administration attacked almost every facet of the immigration system and did so in a shameful and inhumane way,” an administration official told reporters. “The actions that we are taking today will only apply during times of high encounters.”