The White House, corporate media, and even Senate Republicans claim Democrats’ open-border amnesty bill, which does more to secure Ukraine than the U.S., is the only way to successfully curb the influx of more than 10 million illegal border crossers. The real power to end the record-breaking Southern border crisis, however, lies with President Joe Biden, who previously used his executive authority to undo all of his predecessor’s border safeguards. He simply isn’t wielding it.
“Have you done everything you can do with executive authority [on the border]?” a reporter asked the president on the White House lawn on Tuesday.
“I’ve done all I can do. Just give me the power…! Give me the border patrol! Give me the people! The judges! Give me the people who can stop this and make it work right!” Biden replied.
John Kirby, Biden’s coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, also denied during a White House press briefing on Monday that Biden was “withholding executive action on the border until he gets the money” from the Senate border deal. Shortly after, he confirmed the administration’s stance, which is that “the proper way forward is to get the supplemental passed.”
Democrats’ not-so-secret long game is to blame the ongoing border crisis on House Republicans who refuse to give into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s manipulation tactics by passing a bad border bill.
Republicans like Sen. James Lankford, who was chastised by his state’s GOP for “playing fast and loose with Democrats on our border policy,” want you to believe that their negotiations are the only path forward. They want you to believe that the administration they swore to punish for the border’s collapse is making a good-faith effort to fix it.
But even Trump, who was McConnell’s original target for ire, saw through the establishment senators’ sham.
“They are using this horrific Senate Bill as a way of being able to put the BORDER DISASTER onto the shoulders of the Republicans. The Democrats BROKE THE BORDER, they should fix it. NO LEGISLATION IS NEEDED, IT’S ALREADY THERE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
During his first hours in the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2021, Biden halted construction on Trump’s border wall. The former vice president also rescinded the Republican’s executive order refusing federal funding to “sanctuary” cities harboring illegal migrants, discouraged the immediate removal of illegal border crossers who committed crimes, and toppled Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Biden’s day-one proclamations were just the beginning of what would become 296 executive actions on immigration and the southern security boundary in just his first year. Since then, the Democrat has continued to loosen border enforcement by demanding agents avoid making arrests, scaling back ICE deportation, and reinstating Obama-era catch-and-release.
Overall, nearly 1/3 of Biden’s border actions were reversals of his predecessor’s policies.
Biden’s pen doesn’t simply hold the power to undo our nation’s defenses. In October 2023, the Democrat waived 26 federal laws to resume construction of the border wall to comply with a 2019 appropriations bill.
Unlike Trump, who had to jump through judiciary hoops every time he tried to secure the Southern border, Biden could cut off the hundreds of thousands of people without a hitch thanks to the administrative state’s disinterest in opposing its preferred presidential pawn.
The only reason Biden has yet to use his power to secure the border (and satiate voters who say illegal immigration is their top concern heading into the 2024 election) is because he simply doesn’t want to.
With one stroke of a pen, our commander-in-chief could authorize the return of law and order to our border by shutting it down. With one press conference, he could threaten Mexico with steep tariffs for being an accomplice to the crisis as Trump did.
Instead, Biden is using more time and effort to pump up legislation that would codify the crisis and fight a state that wants to defend itself against the invasion.
Biden never had a change of heart about our national security crisis. He never wanted to secure the border. His decision to throw his weight behind controversial border legislation instead of exercising his executive authority simply means that the bill fits perfectly in his deliberate plan to run a borderless nation.
