Five Democratic House lawmakers on Wednesday urged President Biden to reinstate Trump-era immigration policies to “bring order to the Southern border.”
In a joint statement, Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) and Don Davis (D-NC) called on the 81-year-old president to use executive action to reimplement Title 42 and the so-called Remain in Mexico program.
Their plea comes after all five Democrats voted in favor of a border security bill put forward by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Saturday, which failed to garner the two-thirds majority support needed to pass.
The failed vote came on the same day the House passed a $95 billion spending bill for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian aid in Gaza.
“Beyond defending our allies, we strongly agree with the National Border Patrol Council that Congress and the President must act and bring order to the Southern border,” the congressional lawmakers said. “That is why we also voted for H.R. 3602 on Saturday, and why we all voted last month for $19.6 billion for Border Patrol so that it could ramp up its efforts to secure the border.”
“We are also calling today on President Biden to use the authority given the executive by Congress to immediately reimplement 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(C) and we are calling today on leaders in both the House and Senate to pass legislation to give Border Patrol back the expulsion authority that expired last year,” the added, referencing the policies commonly known as Title 42 and Remain in Mexico.
Biden phased out Remain in Mexico, also known as Migrant Protection Protocols, shortly after taking office in 2021.
The policy required asylum seekers to wait for their US immigration hearings in Mexico while their cases were processed.
The pandemic-era Title 42 policy, which ended last summer when the Biden administration declared an end to the public health emergency related to COVID-19, allowed law enforcement authorities to swiftly deport migrants apprehended crossing the border.
Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, slammed the House of Representatives this week for approving billions of dollars in foreign aid while doing nothing to combat the migrant crisis.
“We are beyond disappointed that the House would give aid to secure the borders of foreign countries but gave nothing to allow the Border Patrol to secure the safety of the United States,” the Border Patrol union head told Fox News. “There’s nothing more backwards. I wouldn’t have even expected taxpayers’ dollars. They could have given us policy, and that would have been enough.
More than 7 million migrants have been encountered by US Customs and Border Protection agents along the southern border since Biden took office in 2021, CBP data shows, including 961,537 in the current fiscal year.