(Patriot.Buzz) – Confirming he has no idea where he stands almost four years into his term, Joe Biden revealed he ignored the extent of his authority to address the border crisis.
During a recent interview, Biden said he was hesitant to act and enact executive measures to stop illegals from crossing the U.S. southern border because he was unsure what his possibilities were.
As recent as February, Biden was expected to put his executive powers to use in anticipation of a critical surge in illegal border entries.
These measures included tightening asylum criteria and ordering border closure protocols once illegal crossings surpassed a certain limit. However, such plans never came to be.
Biden told Univision’s Enrique Acevedo that although he had proposed such measures, he and his team were “examining whether or not I have that power.”
He even blamed Congress for his inaction, saying he would have the authority to close the border under extreme circumstances under a Democratic-led Senate border deal. The bill faced firm opposition from Republicans earlier in the year for not going as far as desired.
Biden then acknowledged he was unable to keep the border in check, admitting, “When the border has over 5,000 people a day trying to cross … you can’t manage it, slow it up.”
“There’s no guarantee that I have that power all by myself without legislation. And some have suggested I should just go ahead and try it,” but still he has refused to address the migrant crisis.
Reports from Politico last month even suggested that the administration had briefly dismissed the idea of using executive orders to deal with immigration.
Biden based his decision after the media reduced its focus on the migrant crisis and a there was a decrease in the number of illegal encounters from peaks seen late last year.
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), over 7 million migrant encounters have been recorded at the southern border since Biden took office in 2021, including 961,537 in the current fiscal year alone.
CBP data also revealed that 189,922 attempted border crossings happened in February, surpassing the previous record set in 2022.
This surge in attempts highlights the ongoing challenges at the border, with December 2023 marking an all-time high of nearly 302,000 attempted crossings.
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