President Joe Biden's visit to the U.S.-Mexico border to criticize Republicans over the Senate's failed border bill, which included tough border security measures, marks a dramatic shift for a White House that has generally distanced itself from about the topic.
Since Biden took office, officials have grappled with record migration across the Western Hemisphere driven by the toll of the coronavirus pandemic. Images of thousands of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border haunted the administration as it struggled with how to handle multiple different nationalities, a significant change from previous years that proved challenging.
Sources told CNN that discussions about the border at the White House were often tense as the issue increasingly became a political liability for Biden. The last time Biden visited the southern border of the United States was in January 2023, when he went to El Paso, Texas.
But now, the White House is trying to take advantage of Republicans backing away from the Senate border bill and leveraging border security to attack the GOP.. In one example of that, last week at an annual meeting of governors at the White House, Biden cited the agreement, calling it “the strongest border agreement the country has ever seen.” Officials also placed an information sheet with details of the commitment at each table where the governors were seated.
What was in the commitment: The deal, which Senate negotiators and administration officials worked on for months, included new emergency authority that would allow the secretary of Homeland Security to close the border if certain triggers are met. raised the legal standard of proof for passing initial asylum screening, among other measures.
Biden is also considering sweeping executive action that would restrict migrants' ability to seek asylum in the United States if they crossed the border illegally.
