(Headline USA) President Joe Biden backpedaled on earlier hints that he might use executive action to address the border crisis, adding that he was “counting on” border security “happening by itself,” Fox News reported.
Biden was asked on Monday whether he plans to sign any executive orders related to the crisis following reports earlier this month that he was considering several potential actions. But the president again blamed Congress and said he would not take action until lawmakers did.
“I’m counting on the border action happening by itself, them passing it,” he said of Congress.
A bill passed by the House, HB 2, has been indefinitely stalled in the Senate with Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer refusing to take it up. More recently, the Senate approved a massive spending measure with support from several RINO Republicans that lumped in a nominal amount of border funding along with a much larger provision for Ukraine.
House lawmakers slammed the measure, saying it would have done little to address the underlying issue of enforcing the existing immigration laws, as Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have failed to do.
When a reporter reminded him that the bill had failed already, Biden suggested one was still possible.
“Well, they haven’t yet,” he said. “They haven’t yet. I’m helping them.”
During his first week in office, Biden revoked dozens of Trump-era immigration orders, including the successful “Remain in Mexico” policy and an order ending “catch-and-release.” He has since deflected all blame for repealing these policies.
“No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez claimed last month. “We continue to call on Speaker [Mike] Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border.”
Johnson, however, hit back at the White House, arguing Biden could end the border crisis the same way he started it: with his executive authority.
“The President could stop at section 212 F of the Immigration and Nationality Act [which] the Supreme Court has already acknowledged gives the President broad executive authority. He could close the border literally overnight,” he said last month.
Johnson also reminded the White House that the House did pass a comprehensive border package last year, which Democrats have refused to touch.
“In the nine months since that bill has sat on Chuck Schumer‘s desk collecting dust, 1.8 million illegals have been allowed into this country. Welcomed into the country, sent around the nation into every community. And that is a catastrophe,” he added.
