Senators are weighing in on whether President Biden should take executive action at the southern border to deal with the ongoing migrant surge, with some saying it is Congress’s responsibility to pass the bill.
“The president needs to address the most pressing national security issue we have in this country today at our southern border,” Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts told Fox News. “I hope he will do something and change the current policies that have caused this catastrophe on our nation’s southern border. He has the authority at his disposal to do that. .”
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But Sen. Ben Cardin said Congress, not the president, must resolve the border crisis.
“We need to pass a bill that is agreed upon between senators and senators. [James] Lankford and Sen. [Chris] Mr. Murphy,” the Maryland Democrat said, “Congress needs to act. It’s up to us. I want to see that bill pass.”
President Biden is scheduled to visit the southern border on Thursday after the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan border security agreement earlier this month. The CEO considered administrative measures to curb the ongoing crisis. (Getty Images)
Republicans aggressively criticized the border security deal when it was announced earlier this month, forcing it to fail in the Senate. The long-awaited bill allocates $20 billion to Immigration Enforcement Agency to hire asylum officers and Border Patrol agents, provides millions of dollars to strengthen the border wall, and provides more to close the border. It will give the president and the government the power to
The failure to pass the deal prompted Biden to consider executive action to address the ongoing border crisis.
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“Republicans are stubbornly and stubbornly opposed to passing this bill,” Sen. Ed Markey told Fox News. “That’s sad.”
“As far as the president now having to think through what actions he can take with his inherent powers, I’m waiting to see what proposals he has, but I’m waiting to see what kind of proposals he has,” he said. “It’s just a reluctance because there’s no bipartisan approach that should be put in place first,” the Massachusetts Democrat said.
Senators weighed whether President Biden should take executive action on the southern border after the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan border security agreement. (Megan Myers/Fox News Digital)
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But Sen. Roger Wicker said Biden should have taken action to resolve the border crisis long ago.
“I think the president should enforce the law, and he hasn’t done that yet,” the Mississippi Republican said. “He has allowed millions of people into the country.”
The southern border is facing record numbers of migrant encounters under the Biden administration, including more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection data. , which has rapidly increased from about 1.7 million people in 2021. Encounters soared to record high in December 302,000.
The Biden administration is overseeing encounters with record numbers of migrants at the southern border. (Fox News)
“President Biden is committed to doing what we need to do to both protect our national security and reform our broken immigration system,” Sen. Chris Coons told Fox News. The Delaware Democrat added that he was disappointed that the bipartisan border security deal failed, but said Biden should intervene.
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He said executive action “may be President Biden’s only option.” “It doesn’t have a strong legal standing. It could be immediately blocked in court, but something has to be done to make sure it doesn’t pose a national security threat at our southern border.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden has no plans to invoke the executive order during his visit to Brownsville, Texas, on Thursday. He said the best solution to fixing the “broken immigration system” would have been for Republicans to “advance the bipartisan agreement that came out in the Senate.”
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While senators agreed that the southern border crisis needed to be addressed, some felt it was Congress’s responsibility to act. (Alejandro Segarra/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sen. John Fetterman similarly criticized Republicans.
“Our party showed up to support [the deal] “I believe there is a crisis at the border,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said.
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He said he doesn’t know whether Biden should take executive action.
“We need a deal, and I know the president believes as much as I do that we need to address the border issue,” Fetterman said. “We’re going to deal with it.”
Ramiro Vargas contributed the accompanying video.
