Biden Willing to ‘Shut Down’ Border During Migrant Surges if Deal Passes

WASHINGTON—President Biden urged Congress to pass a border-overhaul bill and said he would be willing to “shut down the border” if it becomes overwhelmed with migrants, pointing to provisions of Senate talks now in their final stages.

Biden said in a statement late Friday that provisions in the proposal, which has yet to be released, would give the president emergency powers to turn back migrants during large influxes rather than process their asylum claims in the U.S.

Under the terms of the emerging deal, border-patrol agents would be required to remove migrants if encounters reached a daily average of 5,000 over a week or 8,500 in a single day, according to a person familiar with the matter. The president would have the option to act at a daily average of 4,000 over a week. Daily crossings have regularly surged above those levels.

“For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it,” Biden said of border legislation. “If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it.” He said if given the “authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed…I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”

Biden’s new push for legislation restricting asylum seekers comes after record illegal crossings under his administration and three years of struggling to curb the surge of migrants. It marks a significant shift from his immigration proposal during the 2020 campaign, which was considered the most liberal plan put forward by any mainstream Democratic nominee in history.

As he seeks re-election, the president has increasingly come to view the border as a political liability, according to people familiar with his thinking, and has been more willing to cut a deal with Republicans. Several recent polls have shown voters roundly disapprove of Biden’s handling of the issue, including a CBS News survey that found 63% of respondents said they wanted the president to be tougher on the border.

Because the 5,000-a-day trigger would include the roughly 1,400 migrants a day that the U.S. is required to process when they schedule appointments, the result would be to essentially shut the border at 3,600 unscheduled encounters, matching the capacity of the U.S. to detain and process the migrants under a rapid process for determining asylum, the person said. The provision doesn’t apply to unaccompanied minors.

The border couldn’t reopen until the level of encounters fell to 75% of the trigger number over a span of two weeks. Taken together, the person said that the border could in essence be shut down to migrants for the rest of the year if crossings continue at their current high levels.

Border Patrol agents in December set a record of nearly 250,000 arrests of migrants caught crossing the border illegally, up 31% from November. Separately, about 52,000 people were taken into custody at legal crossings along the southwest border. About 40,000 of those migrants had appointments made with the government’s CBP One app, which is intended to curb illegal border crossings.

Agents in the Eagle Pass, Texas, area made more than 71,000 arrests in December, setting a record for that region. Eagle Pass is the epicenter of the state’s standoff with the Biden administration over border security.

The new details appear intended to counter opposition among a group of Senate Republicans which has worried that setting the level for a mandatory closure of the border at a daily average of 5,000 would be tantamount to legitimizing the entry of 1.8 million migrants a year.

Biden’s comments came after Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said the House will press ahead with an impeachment vote for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas soon and reiterated that there is a high bar for any House Republican support of the still-emerging Senate border deal that the cabinet official has helped negotiate.

The House Homeland Security Committee has scheduled a Tuesday session to complete articles of impeachment. That sets up a committee vote followed by a subsequent vote on the House floor, which Johnson said in a letter to colleagues on Friday “will be held as soon as possible.”

Republicans have insisted on changes to border policy as a condition for passing stalled aid for war-ravaged Ukraine, part of a proposed $110.5 billion foreign assistance and weapons package. But the emerging framework has faced rising skepticism from Johnson and other House GOP colleagues, who say they worry it won’t significantly deter border crossings.

“House Republicans will vigorously oppose any policy proposal from the White House or Senate that would further incentivize illegal aliens to break our laws,” Johnson wrote in the letter.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) noted in a private conversation with Republicans that the politics on the border have changed as the 2024 elections approach, potentially complicating efforts to pass a combined border-Ukraine bill.

Former President Donald Trump, fresh off a pair of wins on the road to the GOP presidential nomination, has privately told some GOP senators that he is upset that Republicans would vote for a package containing border security because it would give Biden a political win on a top Trump campaign issue, according to a person familiar with the remarks.

Johnson has long taken the position that something closely resembling the H.R. 2 border-security bill the House passed last year would be needed to win the support of House Republicans. That H.R. 2 measure would revive Trump-era policies such as wall construction and would make it nearly impossible for most migrants to qualify for asylum.

The top Senate GOP negotiator, Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), has already ruled out going as far as the House-passed bill, saying such a proposal would be rejected by Democrats. Bipartisan Senate border talks have focused on sharply curtailing asylum claims and narrowing a power called humanitarian parole, as border arrests have surged to record levels. Mayorkas has been a key player in those negotiations, representing the Biden administration’s positions, and text of an agreement could be released as soon as next week.

House Republicans have made Mayorkas the face of what they call the “Biden border crisis,” arguing he was derelict in his duty to secure the border. House Democrats have said that the inquiry is a sham.

“This unserious impeachment is a testament to partisan politics over rules and reason,” wrote Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, in a letter to Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R., Tenn.)

A DHS official said the department is operating within the limits of a broken and outdated immigration system that only Congress can fix.

Impeachment requires a simple majority in the GOP-controlled House. The Democratic-controlled Senate would then need to vote with a two-thirds supermajority to convict and remove them from office. Impeachments of cabinet officials are less dramatic affairs than of presidents, largely because much of the evidence is heard by special panels created by the Senate rather than convening the full Senate into a court of impeachment and essentially stopping legislative work.

Katy Stech Ferek, Tarini Parti and Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this article.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at [email protected]

Corrections & AmplificationsRep. Bennie Thompson is a Democrat. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he was a Republican. (Corrected on Jan. 26)