President Joe Biden’s order, issued a week ago, largely suspends noncitizens’ entry into the country whenever the number of migrants entering the country illegally is high.
“President Biden’s recent executive order flies in the face of our entire asylum system and has no cognizable basis to support it,” said Jennifer Babaie, director of advocacy and legal services for El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the groups behind the lawsuit. “By doing this, the president has managed to further penalize vulnerable individuals and families seeking protection and violated our laws.”
The lawsuit alleges that the exception criteria to Biden’s proclamation is too narrow. People exempted from the policy include permanent U.S. residents, unaccompanied children, trafficking victims and migrants who secure an appointment with U.S. officials. Migrant rights advocates have criticized the phone app used to make those appointments saying it’s already overwhelmed.
Good. His immigration policy should be opposed the same as Trump’s, since it’s identical and the courts already ruled that denying people asylum and punishing them for seeking it is illegal.
It seems very likely that this uncharacteristically conservative move was calculated to produce these results. The house won’t pass any pro immigration laws, so letting the SC strike this down would let the administration essentially leave things where they were and say “can’t do anything else oh well”, effectively removing the topic from election discourse and putting the ball firmly in the Republican court, who won’t be able to get anything past the Senate.
It’s not uncharacteristic. The simpler answer is that Biden is and always has been extremely hawkish on immigration and is further to the right on many issues than even traditional Republican figures like Reagan.
Um, no? In case you forgot, he championed a reform bill that got killed by Republicans:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-sends-immigration-bill-to-congress-as-part-of-his-commitment-to-modernize-our-immigration-system/
Oh nice, a bill that he knew wouldn’t pass. Surely that undoes his chronically awful history on immigration.