Joe Biden is expected to sign this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday, June 4, a decree intended to curb illegal immigration at the border between the United States and Mexico. While the Republicans denounce the laxity of the Democrats, the outgoing president wants to demonstrate that he is taking action, unlike Donald Trump who torpedoed a consensual reform in Congress this winter.
Why is immigration a central theme in the presidential election?
Because arrivals of illegal immigrants from Mexico reached a record level last December, a month during which US Border Patrol agents intercepted in a single month nearly 250,000 people who entered illegally across the southern border of the United States. United. It stretches 3,145 km from Texas to California. If the flow has since decreased (137,000 arrests in March), with the help of Mexico, the Republican opposition maintains the idea of a “crisis” and attributes its authorship to Joe Biden. The Democratic president is guilty in his eyes of having stopped the construction of the wall, partly erected under the presidency of Donald Trump, and of having relaxed the restrictions on entry into the territory of the United States put in place by his predecessor thanks to Covid.
This migration crisis has been fueled by the very right-wing governors of Texas and Florida, Gregg Abbott and Ron DeSantis, who have transported thousands of migrants, by buses and entire charter flights, to the Democratic cities of the North, from Chicago to New York and Washington.
Result: immigration is considered a “very important subject” by 57% of Americans, a jump of 18% compared to the start of Joe Biden’s mandate, according to a poll carried out in January by the Pew Research institute.
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How responsible is Joe Biden?
Immigration is a jurisdiction of the federal government, not the states. But the twenty-five Republican governors who, at the beginning of January, gave vocal support to Texan Abbott and castigated Biden’s laxity, are in quite bad faith. Likewise, Trumpist Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, who criticized the President for wasting time instead of tackling illegal immigration by executive order.
The White House then followed, very closely, a bipartisan agreement on the border, forged in the Senate by the Republican of Oklahoma James Lankford, the Democrat of Connecticut Chris Murphy and the independent of Arizona Kyrsten Sinema. This 400-page text notably provided for the automatic closure of border crossings with Mexico, if more than 5,000 illegal immigrants were intercepted each day for seven days, or 8,500 in a single day; it also toughened the conditions for obtaining asylum in the USA.
Biden was ready to sign it into law as soon as it was adopted. But Donald Trump torpedoed him, by threatening to punish any Republican who voted for him in Congress… The populist billionaire wants the question of immigration to continue to poison Joe Biden until the presidential election on November 5. Especially since on this subject, he is considered more suitable than the Democratic outgoing.
What does the American President intend to do?
Try to regain control and show that he is taking the migration issue head on, unlike Trump and the Republicans, who are vocal but sabotage the work of Congress. By proceeding through presidential decrees, perhaps as early as this Tuesday, June 4. According to the confidences of two members of his entourage to Reuters and the Associated Press, the final arbitrations continued this weekend at the White House.
Joe Biden could thus resurrect certain parts of the agreement reached in the Senate, in particular the system for temporarily closing the border with Mexico. It could also more strictly regulate the procedure for applying for asylum in the United States and speed up expulsions.
Passing through presidential decrees was not his favorite option because, unlike a law passed by Congress, these can easily be challenged in court, which puts the administration at risk of months, even years of paralysis.
