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executive action, which is now being litigated in the courts.”
The executive action Mayorkas referenced was Biden’s presidential proclamation in June 2024, which unilaterally allowed the administration to limit the number of illegal migrants crossing the border. Although this proclamation proved effective in stemming illegal immigration, it came after border officials recorded the highest number of inadmissible crossings in U.S. history and months after Biden had claimed he couldn’t act alone to secure the border.
According to data compiled by the Daily Caller News Foundation, there were roughly 9,780,000 nationwide border encounters from the time Biden assumed office until the executive action was taken.
Biden and Blinken cut a deal with the Mexican government to temporarily lower border crossings before the election and 400,000 people are waiting by Guatemala until after the election to come in.
Todd Bensimon is down there now interviewing people. pic.twitter.com/mUa7UJmyZP
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) October 18, 2024
While much attention was focused on the U.S.-Mexico border, illegal crossings along the country’s northern border also surged to incredibly high levels under the Biden administration, rising by more than 1,000% around the time Biden issued his executive order in June last year.
PBS host Amna Nawaz pointed out that if border security was a priority, the president could have acted sooner on the executive order. Mayorkas claimed that the order would have simply been “litigated earlier.”
Although liberal groups quickly sued the Biden administration over the order, it has remained in place. In the midst of a tough presidential election and not wanting the order to be nixed, Biden even doubled down on the proclamation in September to keep it in place.
Critics were not the only ones who wished the president had acted sooner to secure the southern border. Biden’s own Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chief, Patrick Lechleitner, said he and many federal immigration enforcement officials wished Biden had done more and acted more quickly.
President Biden is in trouble politically in part because he gave in to the loon wing of his party and dissolved the southern border.
Now—5 months before an election—he has to pretend to be willing to secure the border. pic.twitter.com/4s0ts5fZB4
— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) June 4, 2024
“I think the career people in [the Department of Homeland Security] would have liked that,” Lechleitner said in an interview with NBC News earlier in January. “And all of us in DHS, quite frankly, I don’t know if anybody in DHS wouldn’t have wanted that earlier.”
“We could have detained more people, and we could have removed more people,” Lechleitner added. “And I think we could use more resources and support. We could have done that in the last four years.”
When Biden entered office in January 2021, he immediately took actions to dismantle the border security apparatus President Donald Trump had in place, such as ending the Remain in Mexico program, halting construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and even attempting to implement a moratorium on deportations. Biden signed a total of 89 executive orders in his first year that specifically rolled back Trump-era immigration policies.
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