During the Trump administration, there was a running joke about “Infrastructure Week”: at least half a dozen times the White House said it would focus all its attention on roads, bridges, etc., and every time it didn’t happen.
The Biden administration is following suit on an even more pressing problem, and one of its own creation: the uncontrolled border.
After repeated hints from the White House that the president might finally do something about the border — to no avail — this week, the president himself hinted that he might be able to act.
In the first three years of this administration, approximately 3.5 million people without entry into the United States were released into the country by Biden’s DHS.
There were another 2 million “fugitives” – border crossers that agents saw on remote cameras or knew about but who were unable to stop.
Added to all this is an unknown number of foreigners who have infiltrated the border without anyone in a position of authority being aware of all this.
No country in history has ever allowed such a large-scale illegal flow across its borders.
Biden created disaster upon taking office by dismantling all the border stabilization measures put in place by Trump.
Nonetheless, a president concerned with the rule of law and national security would have recognized his mistake and immediately acted to stop it.
Instead, all we got was reassurance that everything is okay, stay calm.
But there’s an election coming up, and Biden’s opponent is Mr. Build-The-Wall himself.
The administration had to do something.
So in February, after the implosion of the Senate’s misleading border bill (authored in part by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas), the White House repeatedly disclosed that President Biden was considering a “bold move ” to use “vast presidential authority.” to stop the bleeding at the border.
Specifically, limiting the ability of border crossers to use false asylum claims as a means to remain in the country.
No one at the White House explained how this squared with the president’s assurance weeks earlier that “I did everything I could” to control the border.
Regardless, Biden was expected to make his “bold” and “radical” announcement during his leap day visit to the Rio Grande (hastily arranged after Donald Trump announced that he would go there).
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, Biden once again blamed Republicans for not passing the Senate’s terrible Mayorkas bill.
(While Biden procrastinated, there were another 190,000 “encounters” at the southern border in February, most of which were abandoned.)
The State of the Union address in March was another opportunity for Biden to make his “bold” and “radical” announcement.
Once again, all he did was blame Republicans for the mess he himself caused.
(Meanwhile, another 190,000 people without entry into the United States were “encountered” at the southern border in March.)
What’s new this week is that the president himself this time raised the possibility that he could actually start doing his job.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper Univision, Biden was asked about other leaks from the White House regarding bold and sweeping measures to close the border.
“We’re looking at whether I have that power or not,” Biden told the Univision interviewer.
He continued: “Some suggest I should just try. And if I’m arrested by the court, I’m arrested by the court.
This is a laughable lie, because it is clear that he has – and always has had – the power to prevent the entry of unauthorized outsiders.
Specifically, Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the president broad (even bold!) powers to keep people out. Here’s what it says: “Whenever the President considers that the entry of any alien or class of aliens into the United States would be injurious to the interests of the United States, he may, by proclamation. . . suspend the entry of all foreigners or any category of foreigners.
You don’t need a law degree to understand this.
This provision overrides (you should pardon the expression) all other rules regarding who can come here.
And the Supreme Court agrees.
When President Trump used this provision in the falsely labeled “Muslim ban,” the justices upheld his legal authority to do so, writing that this provision “exudes deference to the president in every clause” – in other words , he can exclude anyone he wants. wanna.
Will anything come of it this time?
White House officials told the news site Axios that “such an executive order would be likely by the end of April.”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
New York Post
