Democratic Congressman Don Davis today called President Joe Biden’s new executive order on border security overdue while Republican Senator Thom Tillis said it was far too little too late.
Davis issued a joint statement with representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Jared Golden of Maine and Mary Peltola of Alaska.
“This order is an overdue step, but our Southern Border is still not secure,” the joint statement said. “We’ve long demanded President Biden change course and empower the Border Patrol, and he’s finally acting and listening to the law enforcement agents in the field, like we’ve been telling him to do.”
But, the statement said, “Make no mistake: This job is far from over for the president and congress. To that end, in addition to his action today, President Biden needs to use the authority given to the executive by congress to immediately reimplement 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(C) — see document at this link — and we are again calling on leaders in both the house and senate to pass legislation to give the Border Patrol back the expulsion authority that expired last year.”
The contingent said that border security must be the top national security priority for Biden. “The president needs to do all he can to restore operational control of our Southern Border, and stop drug cartels from trafficking fentanyl into communities across America.”
In April, after voting for H.R. 3602 to restore operational control at the Southern Border, the four called on the president to utilize his full executive authority to secure the border. They called on the president to utilize his full authority again in May, and, the statement said, are renewing their call today.
In March, all four voted to pass funding for the largest Border Patrol workforce in the nation’s history.
Meanwhile, Tillis said, “For the last 1,232 days, President Biden refused to take any executive action to secure the border. What did he do instead? On day one, he reversed all of President Trump’s border security executive actions, creating the worst border crisis in our nation’s history.”
Tillis said now that Biden is facing voters in five months he “is trying to make it look like he’s finally doing his job, but this executive order is far too little and far too late.”
The Associated Press reported today that the president unveiled plans to enact immediate significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the border.
The AP reported, according to senior administration officials, the order will go into effect when the number of border encounters between ports of entry hits 2,500 per day.
That means, the news agency reported, that Biden’s order should go into effect immediately, because that figure is higher than the daily averages now.
The restrictions would be in effect until two weeks after the daily encounter numbers are at or below 1,500 per day between ports of entry, under a seven-day average.
