Since taking office, Joe Biden has insisted that the only changes that will fix the issues at the border would need to come from Congress, as he does not have the power as president to do anything.
Biden just proved himself to be a liar by now suggesting that he is about to take executive order to start to lock down the border.
Talking Points…
- Biden stance on immigration reform
- Biden now expected to use executive order
- Analysis
Since taking office, Joe Biden has avoided addressing the issues at the border. He continues to say that Congress needs to fix this issue, openly saying that he would not use executive orders and that he does not have that power. However, now that we are into election season, that narrative has started to change.
In March, Biden still insisted that this was something that could only be addressed by Congress. White House spokesman Angelo Fernandez Hernandez confirmed that at the time, stating:
"No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected.
"We continue to call on Speaker [Mike] Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border."
To that point, Biden had insisted that he did not have the power and that he would shut down the border "tomorrow" if Congress would act. Since Congress seems incapable of passing single-issue legislation, poison pills were added by both sides, so nothing was ever passed, with both sides complaining about the other not wanting to pass serious border reform. So close to the election, Biden started to change his tune, knowing he needed to do something before the election. To that point, in April, Biden stated:
"We're examining whether or not I have that power.
"When the border has over … 5,000 people a day trying to cross the border because you can't manage it, slow it up. There's no guarantee that I have that power all by myself without legislation. And some have suggested I should just go ahead and try it. And if I get shut down by the court, I get shut down by the court."
The fact of the matter is that Biden has always had the power to do this, but he did not want to have the order challenged in court by a liberal organization, so he backed down. With immigration now being one of the key issues for voters and playing a large part in Trump leading Biden in key battleground states, Biden is suddenly changing his tune on this.
Reports started to break this week that Biden is going to use an executive order to piecemeal provisions from the immigration legislation written by a group of bipartisan Senators that failed to gain enough support for passage. The New York Post reported:
"The order would match a provision in the bipartisan border bill that failed to pass the Senate in February, which gave the president authority to expel migrants when border crossings reached the same daily average.
"The legislative proposal would have given the homeland security secretary discretionary authority to carry out removals — but would have made deportations mandatory when illegal entries surpassed 5,000 per day over a one-week period."
The idea of Joe Biden being afraid to use executive orders to test his powers is a complete and utter joke. When you look at how he has circumvented Congress on student loan forgiveness, why would he have any hesitancy here? And quite frankly, I don't understand why the GOP is not pushing this issue more using that exact example.
In reality, Biden knows he has the authority, even if that authority will be challenged in court, as it typical on controversial executive orders. The difference is that Biden will be challenged by liberal organizations on this, which is bad for business during an election. Believe me, Biden hopes the order fails so he can shrug his shoulders and kick the can back to Congress. All he is doing here is trying to show the fence sitters in the election that he is trying to fix the border, hoping that nobody will call him out for what has been happening over the last 40 months or so since he took over the White House.
