Speaker Johnson urges Biden to take executive action on the border

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is asking President Biden to take executive actions related to the border, including implementing stricter immigration enforcement policies and restarting construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The request, sent in a Thursday letter, comes as his colleagues in the Senate were unable to come to an agreement on border policy changes as a condition for additional Ukraine aid before leaving for a holiday recess.

“While a bipartisan group of Senators has begun extensive negotiations over the past few weeks to try to find a compromise, they have not yet been able to finalize an agreement,” Johnson said in the letter. “Statutory reforms designed to restore operational control at our southern border must be enacted, but the crisis at our southern border has deteriorated to such an extent that significant action can wait no longer. It must start now, and it must start with you.”

“I urge you to immediately take executive actions available to you under existing immigration laws to stem the record tide of illegal immigration,” Johnson said.

The Speaker called for executive actions to “turn back or detain all illegal aliens encountered between ports of entry,” ending the so-called catch-and-release policy; grant parole solely on a case-by-case-basis rather than for entire classes of migrants; reinstate asylum cooperative agreements and negotiate with Mexico to reinstitute the “Remain in Mexico” program; expand the use of expedited removal; and restart construction of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Johnson also referenced a border law that conservatives have used as the core of a “dereliction of duty” impeachment argument against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“I also urge you to utilize Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to regain operational control of the border,” Johnson wrote. “That provision empowers the President to ‘suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate’ if the President ‘finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.’” 

In the letter, Johnson cited record encounters with migrants on the southern border and pointed to the fentanyl poisoning epidemic.

“All of this is the direct result of your administration’s policies,” Johnson wrote to Biden. “You have clearly undermined America’s sovereignty and security by ending the Remain in Mexico policy, reinstating catch-and-release, suspending asylum cooperative agreements with other nations, revoking existing restraints on the abuse of parole, and halting border wall construction.”

“You also undermined Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) core mission, and even created a smartphone app to facilitate the release of border crossers into the United States,” Johnson wrote, referencing the CBP One app that streamlines processing of migrants.

Johnson mentioned a bill passed by House Republicans earlier this year, the H.R. 2 Secure the Border Act, and dinged the Senate for not bringing up the legislation or coming to a compromise agreement on border policies as part of the Ukraine funding package.