President Joe Biden indicated in a new interview that he is considering taking executive action to secure the southern border.
“Have you made a final decision on taking executive order in terms of what you want to do at the border? That includes the power to shut down the border, as it was suggested,” Univision’s Enrique Acevedo asked Biden in an interview that aired late Tuesday night.
“Well, it’s suggested that we’re examining whether or not I have that power,” Biden answered.
“I would have that power under the legislation,” the president continued, referring to the Senate’s $118 billion spending bill, which included a measure that would allow the president to close the border after 5,000 illegal aliens crossed in a single day. That bill failed in the Senate in February, and House Republican leadership said it would have been dead on arrival in the lower chamber.
“There’s no guarantee that I have that power all by myself without legislation,” Biden said in reference to closing the border, despite what his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, was able to do through executive orders.
Biden, a Democrat, added that “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.”
“But we’re trying to work through that right now,” he said.
Axios reports that while executive action by Biden on the southern border isn’t yet final, one is expected by the end of April.
Such an executive order has been rumored for weeks, beginning before Biden’s trip to the border Feb. 29 and his State of the Union address March 7.
Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the president authority “to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” when the president “finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
As president, Trump used the power outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act to implement policies to secure the border and keep illegal aliens on the other side, policies that Biden undid through executive actions when he took office in January 2021.
If Biden chooses to take executive action now on securing the border, he will be following Trump’s model and drawing on the power given to the president in U.S. law.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that agents have encountered over 1.1 million illegal aliens at the southern border since the start of fiscal year 2024 on Oct. 1. In February, the latest month for which CBP has published numbers, agents encountered 189,922 illegal aliens at the border, averaging 6,549 a day.