President Biden’s recently announced border security policies will likely do little to ease the surge in crossings at the southern border, according to an immigration think tank.
“At this point, the administration is neither investing in nor providing solutions,” the American Immigration Council wrote in its analysis of Biden’s policies. “They’re essentially just hoping that the asylum system will improve on its own.”
The analysis came after the president signed an executive order last week aimed at strengthening border security, a move he said was necessary because of “Republican obstruction” of a bipartisan border bill that died in the Senate earlier this year.
“The border is not a politicized issue that should be weaponized,” Biden said in announcing the executive order.
Jen Psaki acknowledges Biden’s border executive orders were meant to address ‘political vulnerability’ before the election
President Biden announced an executive order to close the border if there is an average of 2,500 encounters over a seven-day period. (Getty Images)
Biden’s order would temporarily suspend the entry of foreign nationals if the number of encounters at the border exceeds a seven-day daily average of 2,500 cases, and would remain in effect for 14 days after the seven-day average falls below 1,500 cases.
Historical trends make it unlikely Biden’s order will be lifted anytime soon, according to the American Immigration Council.
“Recent history indicates that absent a sudden, unprecedented change in border trends, the current state of emergency is highly unlikely to be lifted in the near future. In five of the past six fiscal years, the average monthly border crossings exceeded 1,500 in all but one month,” the analysis said.
The report notes that there may be temporary declines in border apprehensions, which historically occur as migrants and traffickers take a “wait and see” approach to U.S. policy and changes at the border, particularly during the summer, a time when border apprehensions historically typically decline.
Border crossings surge as election draws closer, prompting President Biden to order most illegal immigration stopped
“But meeting the Biden administration’s conditional goal of reducing the number of people crossing the border over the next six months and beyond will require more than that. The US will need to do what it has tried and failed for a decade: deter people from fleeing their homes by making life harder for those who have already reached the US in the midst of a global flight crisis,” the analysis said.
President Biden talks with a Border Patrol agent while walking along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Instead, the report calls on the US to strengthen its asylum system and provide “new avenues for people to come without feeling compelled to cross the border,” though the report acknowledges that such an approach would require “an infusion of funding from Congress to support the humanitarian protection system, including hiring more asylum officers, immigration enforcement officers, immigration judges, and support staff across the system.”
“Committing to a deterrence strategy also requires meaningful investments, the benefits of which are highly uncertain. Committing to a solution strategy ensures that investments today will make the system work better tomorrow,” the report said.
‘It’s an insult’: Biden’s border order draws condemnation from Democrats and Republicans
The report also comes as Biden’s executive orders have come under fire from Republicans, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott accusing the administration of “gaslighting” the American public into believing the president has taken meaningful action.
“To the extent that the Biden administration refuses to take any form of enforcement action, any form of deterrence of people crossing the border illegally, all this new Biden policy is going to do is actually invite even more people to cross the border illegally,” Abbott told Fox News last week. “The number of people crossing the border is not going down. It’s only accelerating.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott participated in a panel discussion at the Yale Club in Manhattan on September 27, 2023. (Luis C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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Abbott’s criticism of the policy appeared to emerge the day after the executive order was signed, with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) source telling Fox News that the Border Patrol apprehended roughly 4,000 illegal immigrants at ports of entry the day after Biden’s announcement, a figure that was at least on par with the average in the weeks before the executive order, which typically hovered in the mid- to high-3,000s.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
