Biden's Immigration Order Won't Solve the Border Crisis
Even if it survives legal challenges, it won’t solve the problem or reform US immigration — a task that only Congress can achieve.
Waiting for Congress.
Photographer: Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images
Spoiler alert: The migration crisis at the US southern border will not be solved by a stroke of the presidential pen. Indeed, President Joe Biden’s staged signing Tuesday of an executive order to limit migrant access to the US at its border with Mexico amounts to a tragicomic blend of political kabuki and Groundhog Day: Even if his diktat survives the inevitable fusillade of court challenges, it comes with no appropriated funds to support its administration and enforcement. And we’ve been here before. Biden has issued well over 500 executive orders on immigration, on top of the 472 by former President Donald Trump. For all that presidential ink, encounters at the border hovered near record highs last year, and immigration understandably remains at the top of voters’ minds.
Fittingly enough for an election-year gambit, the partisan complaints about Biden’s order have fallen along predictable lines. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said it amounted to “too little, too late.” Democratic firebrands such as Representative Pramila Jayapal characterized it as “very, very disappointing” and put Biden in the same camp as Trump.