Illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico has dropped dramatically since President Joe Biden took executive action earlier this month to stop migrants from seeking asylum.
The Biden administration took a victory lap Wednesday as it announced a 40% drop in illegal immigrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border following its early June ban on asylum-seekers.
“Across the entire southern border, Border Patrol encounters have dropped by over 40%,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, Department of Homeland Security secretary, during a press conference in Tucson, Arizona, Wednesday. “We are removing more noncitizens without a legal basis to stay here.”
The number of illegal immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents over the past seven days was down to less than 2,400 arrests per day compared to roughly 4,000 earlier this month.
“Three weeks ago, in the face of congressional inaction, Biden used his executive authority and suspended the entry of noncitizens across the southern border,” said Mayorkas, who was impeached by the House earlier this year for his handling of the border crisis. “We are imposing stricter consequences for those who cross the border without authorization. These actions are changing the calculus for those considering crossing our border.”
Rather than releasing illegal immigrants into the United States, DHS has carried out flights returning illegal immigrants to their home countries at a higher rate than before the executive action. More than 100 flights to 20 countries have disembarked, resulting in 24,000 people repatriated.
Mayorkas was indicted by the House in February after Republicans charged him with willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and a breach of the public trust related to a border crisis that began in early 2021.
Republicans have criticized the executive action as going beyond Biden’s authority by setting immigration levels when that is a responsibility of the legislative branch, not the executive branch. Biden has subsequently announced plans to provide new pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens, prompting the GOP to denounce the move as an “amnesty.”
“Only Congress can deliver a full and lasting solution. Only Congress, through legislation, can fix what everyone would agree is a broken immigration system that was last updated almost 30 years ago,” said Mayorkas.
At the time of the first executive action earlier this month, Biden, who faces difficult reelection prospects, blamed Republicans who refused to pass a Senate border bill for his decision to take action.
The executive order, along with two rules issued by the Department of Justice and DHS, will allow federal law enforcement to remove migrants quickly after they cross illegally and are apprehended.
It does this by making it much more difficult for migrants in government custody to request asylum, thus allowing federal authorities to remove those who fail the screening process from the country.
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Migrants will be returned home within “a matter of days if not hours,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Tuesday morning. For migrants who do state that they fear being returned to their home country, they will be screened against a “substantially higher standard” than the threshold that has been used as the basis for being able to seek asylum.
Under the new protocols, the asylum ban will remain in effect if the seven-day average of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents between the ports of entry is above 2,500 arrests per day. The ban will only be walked back if the seven-day average drops below 1,500 apprehensions daily for at least two weeks.
