Biden’s sweeping asylum restrictions take effect at midnight as he tackles a key political problem
CNN
The Biden administration plans to immediately invoke an authority to shut off access to asylum for migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, senior officials said Tuesday, a significant attempt by President Joe Biden to address head on one of his biggest political vulnerabilities.
The Biden administration is quickly invoking an authority to shut off access to asylum for migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, senior officials said Tuesday, a significant attempt by President Joe Biden to address head on one of his biggest political vulnerabilities. Biden unveiled the sweeping executive action Tuesday afternoon at the White House, attempting to use executive action to affect the situation on the border after a bipartisan measure failed earlier this year. The action marks the administration’s most dramatic move on the US southern border as Biden tries to gain the upper hand on immigration just weeks from the first presidential debate – by using the same authority former President Donald Trump tried to use in office. The White House announced the action would take effect at midnight. In a speech at the White House, Biden said Republicans in Congress who blocked a bipartisan border deal left him no choice but to take executive action. “I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border,” Biden said. The new executive action bars migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum – a departure from decades-long protocol – once a daily threshold is met. Unless they meet certain exemptions, migrants will be turned away to Mexico or returned to their origin country.
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.