Anti-Migrant Directives Under Consideration by Biden Slammed as 'Trump Policy'

Immigration rights advocates on Wednesday condemned President Joe Biden's reported consideration of a series of anti-migrant actions, including invoking an executive authority used by the Trump administration to make it more difficult for people to seek asylum in the United States.

According to reports, Biden is considering acting without Congress in an election year bid to stem the flow of undocumented migrants at the southern U.S. border.

"This would be an extremely disappointing mistake. Cruel enforcement-only policies have been tried for 30 years and simply do not work," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in response to the reporting.

"Democrats cannot continue to take pages out of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller's playbook—we need to lead with dignity and humanity," she added, referring to the former U.S. president and 2024 GOP front-runner and his xenophobic senior immigration adviser.

As Politicoreported:

Among the ideas under discussion include using a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act to bar migrants from seeking asylum in between U.S. ports of entry. The administration is also discussing tying that directive to a trigger—meaning that it would only come into effect after a certain number of illegal crossings took place, said the three people, who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

A trigger mechanism was part of a bipartisan Senate border deal that never reached the floor earlier this month. During the deal's construction... Biden repeatedly said it would have given him the authority to "shut down" the border.

The White House is also reportedly considering invoking Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers the president to ban entry to noncitizens who are deemed "detrimental to the interests of the United States." Trump repeatedly tried to use Section 212(f) as his administration pursued draconian anti-migrant measures. However, three levels of the federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court, blocked him from doing so.

The White House would not comment on the reports, but spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said that the Biden administration "spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system."

"No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected," he added, calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans to "pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border."

In addition to expanding Title 42—a provision first invoked by the Trump administration at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic—to expel more than 1 million migrants under the guise of public safety, Biden also forced migrants to prove that they previously sought asylum in a third country before applying for U.S. protection.

"The cruel measures being proposed collectively create a government-mandated asylum ban."

The Biden administration also required asylum-seekers to schedule an appointment using an app that connects them to Customs and Border Protection instead of attempting to cross the border. Asylum-seekers often did not have internet access, and the app was riddled with glitches.

Title 42 ended last May, and a federal judge blocked some of Biden's other anti-migrant policies in July.

"What is needed now more than ever from the Biden administration is to ensure that any border security executive actions protect due process for asylum-seekers and provide resources for a fair, efficient, and humane asylum system," Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The cruel measures being proposed collectively create a government-mandated asylum ban, which even border officials contend will only create more chaos at the southern border, while failing to address the real issue at hand," he added. "We call on the Biden administration to abandon this cruel proposed plan and immediately invest in strategic, humane actions that will help secure our border and provide fair treatment for asylum-seekers."