President Biden on Tuesday blamed former President Trump and Republicans for leaving him no choice but to act to stem the influx of migrants at the U.S. southern border.
The president, in comments at the White House, said he was “overcoming Republican obstruction” to act on his own and announce the order, which will take effect when the seven-day average of daily border crossings exceeds 2,500 between ports of entry. . .
“Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to really be able to fix the kind of system we have now, which is broken. Hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges. But the Republicans left me no choice,” Biden said.
He called the bipartisan border bill negotiated in the Senate, which Republicans twice blocked, “the strongest border security agreement in decades” and blamed Trump for its failure.
“Republicans in Congress, not all of them, abandoned the initiative. Why? Because Donald Trump told them to do so,” said the president. “He told the Republicans…that he didn’t want to solve the problem; he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was a cynical, extremely cynical political move. And a complete disservice to the American people who reach out to us, not to arm the border, but to repair it.”
Trump urged the Republican Party to block the deal so that the border would remain a major issue on Election Day. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) trashed the border agreement in February, calling it “dead on arrival,” and Trump in January told his supporters that it was OK to be accused of rejecting it. the project.
Biden on Tuesday also criticized Trump for his deportation proposal to remove immigrants who entered the US illegally. The former president cited the Eisenhower administration’s deportation efforts through a program known as “Operation Wetback,” which used military tactics to arrest migrants.
“I will never separate children from their families at the border, I will not ban people from this country for their religious benefits, I will not use the U.S. military to enter neighborhoods across the country and take millions of people from their homes, away from their families and put them in detention camps… as my predecessor says he will,” Biden said.
The president has faced resistance to his order from both sides, including Republicans who consider it weak. On the left, House liberals criticized the order and said they were disappointed with Biden’s decision.
Biden, in his remarks, asks critics to be patient with the new policy.
“To those who say the measures I have taken are too strict, I say to you, be patient,” he said. “Doing nothing is not an option. We have to act.”
Additionally, the president called on Congress to provide funding for more border security agents, immigration judges and asylum officers and acquire more high-tech detection machines at the border.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
