The White House statement comes after a week of frantic negotiations in the Senate.
President Joe Biden on Friday urged Congress to pass a bipartisan bill to address the immigration crisis at the nation’s southern border, saying he would shut down the border the day the bill became law.
“What’s been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” Biden said in a statement. “It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”
Biden’s Friday evening statement resembles a ramping up in rhetoric for the administration, placing the president philosophically in the camp arguing that the border may hit a point where closure is needed. The White House’s decision to have Biden weigh in also speaks to the delicate nature of the dealmaking, and the urgency facing his administration to take action on the border — particularly during an election year, when Republicans have used the issue to rally their base.
The president is also daring Republicans to reject the deal as it faces a make-or-break moment amid GOP fissures.
The border is already closed to illegal travel, that’s why such travel is illegal.
The border is not impenetrable - it is over a thousand miles of mostly difficult terrain - and enforcing entry requirements is difficult for those reasons.
The single most effective way to reduce illegal immigration is to punish businesses for employing illegal immigrants. As with everything else, as long as a market exists then there will be an economic incentive to break the law. This is true for drugs, prostitution, Russian oil, etc.
The federal government essentially enables the employment of migrants because many industries, particularly food harvesting and processing, could not operate without this labor. The consequence of the choice to not punish these companies is more migrants seeking the same economic opportunity.
Fix the problem at that end and illegal border crossings will drop dramatically.
I agree with everything you said and that still begs the question: What does “close the border” even mean then in this context? It’s just a pointless platitude.