The White House statement comes after a week of frantic negotiations in the Senate.

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.

  • Monument@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    694·
    11 months ago

    The fun thing is that this bill would give any president that power.

    …. Oh.
    But maybe that’s what they want. A president that can shut the border for political points would decimate industry. These tend to be industries that employ a lot of salt of the earth people, and the owners give a lot of money to Republicans. Republicans use this as a wedge issue and have spent years whipping their base into a frenzy. Giving them the authority to hurt themselves.

    A stupid Republican president would shut down the border and harm industry. A smart Republican president would not fall into that trap, but be paralyzed until a new talking point arises.
    The base would support populist moves like shutting the border. Donors wouldn’t. Farmers with rotting crops would not.

    Shrewd.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
      701·
      11 months ago

      It’s shrewd for a totally different reason. Trump told them not to pass this bill, Johnson says it’s DOA in the Republican House. So now Trump and the Republican House are arguing against closing the border.

      If any Republican says Biden is for open borders he can just say “I had a bipartisan deal for closing the border and Trump and the Republicans killed it.”

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
        102·
        11 months ago

        Yup. I don’t think Biden wants to shut down the border, but there were many things in that deal that would be good. Additional staff to process asylum requests to speed that up is good for everyone. There’s some things in there that’s not so good, but overall it would improve things and no one could say he didn’t anything about the borderrrrr.

        But it looks like Trump has sabotaged the thing. So now he can say “yeah I’d close the border but the republican congress won’t pass the bill because Trump cares more about himself than doing something about this problem.”

        I think a lot of the border stuff is overblown, there’s issues, but it’s not the crisis they make it out to be. But now Biden has a way to neuter that rhetoric.

      • PoliticalAgitator@lemmy.world
        51·
        11 months ago

        If any Republican says Biden is for open borders he can just say “I had a bipartisan deal for closing the border and Trump and the Republicans killed it.”

        And if Republicans operated with logic and fairness, that would work.

        Unfortunately, they don’t. Trump could just claim the entire thing was deepfaked and his little cult would dutifully believe it without even knowing what a deep fake was.

        They will accept literally any excuse, no matter how bad, to hold on to the opinions they want to have.

        • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
          7·
          11 months ago

          He was never going to win the type of voter who would believe Trump no matter what. But almost 50% of Americans consider themselves independent. There is a cohort who wants action taken on the border and also abortion rights and this swings them from 50/50 to Biden. Or whatever the specifics are, this is popular with some number of independent voters who might otherwise vote for Trump.

        • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
          12·
          11 months ago

          He’s not trying to win the people who will ignore the facts and blame him no matter what. The point is that Republicans ignore him and keep yelling about the border crisis, and he gets to say he had a border deal and Trump killed it. Independents/swing voters get to judge who really can or will ‘fix the border crisis’.

          You can’t just assume Republicans won’t lose votes for killing a deal to fix a thing they say is a problem. The point is that the Republican candidate WILL lose votes from this. Just a matter of how many.

            • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
              12·
              11 months ago

              It’s not 5D chess it’s literally the most basic politics. The border is a political weakness for him, now he can blame the other guy.

              Say to who? Nobody cares.

              Swing voters who care about border politics. If you refuse to believe those two things exist I can’t help you.

    • ryathal
      41·
      11 months ago

      Any president already has the power to shut the border.

      • f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@lemmy.world
        3·
        11 months ago

        When Gov. Abbott shut slowed down the border for a couple days for inspections, it was an economic disaster. No doubt that they want to make Biden do it this time and then blame him for the consequences.

        It also seems that when Democratic presidents wield privilege to take Executive action, they are “dictators”, but when Republican presidents wield privilege to take Executive action, they are “heroes”.