Biden’s power to shut border
President Joe Biden doesn’t have the power to shut down the border. Except when he decides that he does.
Earlier this year, Biden vowed to “shut down” the border if only Congress would give him the legislative high sign.
“Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office,” he said in January. “Give me the Border Patrol, give me the people, the judges — give me the people who can stop this and make it work right.”
Turns out he was “the people.”
The president is planning executive action that would allow him to shut down the US-Mexico border once the number of migrant crossings reaches 4,000 per day.
It matches a provision in February’s failed Senate bipartisan border bill, which gave the president authority to expel migrants when border crossings reached that number.
It’s an odd number to set as a basis for action. In March, southwestern border authorities stopped an average of more than 6,300 migrants per day. At the end of last year, Border Patrol processed nearly 50,000 migrants who entered the US illegally in a five-day span.
We’ve hit 4,000 a day, many times. So why that number now? Does this baseline mean that action will be immediate?
Using 4,000 crossings a day as the basis for “shutting down the border” is looking at the wrong number. What Biden should have been doing all along is looking at the costs to cities, towns and states tasked with housing and caring for migrants.
Mayors and governors around the country have been scrambling for months to find the money to cover shelter for the migrant influx, with little to no help from the feds. That was the canary in the coal mine.
Services are facing cuts as budgets burst at the seams to pay for migrant care. If Biden had taken action back in January, when he insisted he didn’t have the power to do what he’s reportedly going to do now, it would have made some difference.
But since Biden has rediscovered his Executive Order powers, he shouldn’t let up. Open the fed coffers to help states like Massachusetts defray the cost of the migrant influx.