President Joe Biden vows to close the border
A bipartisan agreement on border security being negotiated in Congress is teetering. To help its passage, Biden has vowed to use it to close the border.
In the Senate of the United States Congress negotiations continue with the aim of reaching a bipartisan agreement that includes providing aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as new measures regarding border security.
However, lawmakers from both parties have not reached an agreement, as some Republicans hope for a more aggressive anti-illegal immigration package. Trump has been encouraging them not to pass the border deal unless they get a “perfect” deal which is threatening to derail the talks.
This has dismayed other Republican senators who feel they won’t be able to pass a stronger package of border security legislation next year, even were Trump to win the election. “To lose this opportunity to get it passed into law I think is malpractice,” GOP Senator Thom Tillis said.
He thinks that tanking the border security deal would be a big political mistake on the part of Trump and Republicans following his lead. He points to new tools Biden and future presidents would receive under the Senate package.
President Biden for his part wants to get the deal passed in order to not only improve the situation at the southern border but also to get funding for Ukraine to fend off the Russian invasion and Israel in its fight with Hamas. To help convince certain Republicans and stiffen their resolve to see the negotiations through, Biden issued a statement on Friday promising that, if the bipartisan agreement is approved, he would immediately use his authority granted in it to close the border.
“If given the authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill,” Biden
Through a statement, the president reported that he has a team working hours to reach an agreement in order to solve the immigration crisis. “What has been negotiated would - if passed into law - the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” Biden said.
“It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” he added.
Additionally, Biden noted that he hopes Congress will approve funds to secure the border through the following measures:
- 1,300 additional border patrol agents
- 375 immigration judges
- 1,600 asylum officers
- More than 100 state-of-the-art inspection machines to help detect and stop fentanyl on the southwest border
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DHS has deported more than 470,000 people in 7 months
According to the latest report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in December 2023, Border Patrol recorded 249,785 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border. Total encounters along the southwest border were 302,034 in December.
On the other hand, CBP reported that, during the first two weeks of January, it saw a decrease of more than 50% in encounters on the southwest border between ports of entry.
From May 2023 to December 31, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expelled or returned a record number of people (more than 472,000), the vast majority of whom crossed the southwest border, including more than 78,800 individual family members.
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