This afternoon, President Biden announced executive actions that could soon
slow down migration at the southern border.
It will shut down asylum request once the daily threshold
of 2500 daily migrant encounters is met.
His announcement is already receiving criticism and pushback.
Congressional correspondent Nathaniel Reed is live on Capitol Hill with
more on how lawmakers are responding to this.
Nate, what are congressional Republicans say?
Well, congressional Republicans aren't big fans of this.
That was kind of expected when this was announced earlier
today and when we first got some of the details
yesterday about this executive action that President Biden has taken.
Now, we spoke earlier today with Senator Kevin Cramer, the
Republican from North Dakota.
He told us this entire executive order is too little
too late.
It kind of seems like bonus is on Congress to
do something.
Can anything be passed on a bipartisan basis in the
Senate in advance of the 2024 election?
I, I don't see how we do anything in the
next 5 months.
We're hardly ever here.
Chuck Schumer is, you know, filling the schedule to the
degree we have one.
You know, we'll show votes and and low level nominations.
I, I just don't see it myself.
But, you know, we, we spent four years with the
president who actually secured our border with the same laws
that this president has to open our borders.
I, I think the American people have a pretty clear
idea of who does a better job at the border.
And I just spoke with, it's not just Republicans, to
be clear, who are upset with this executive action.
I just spoke with Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chairwoman of
the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
You'll hear more from her next hour with Chad Seals
on the race.
But again, there's conservatives who are angry about this.
They don't believe that this is enough.
This is too little too late, in their words.
And some progressives say that this is just too harsh
an immigration policy and that President Biden made a mistake
in trying to roll this out, basically saying that if
Republicans don't even like it, why even bother rolling out?
Of course, there are some moderate Democrats who have constantly
faced the question of what to do about immigration.
Moderate Democrats obviously stand to lose the most on the
immigration question.
Republicans typically benefit from the tighter immigration policies that they've
been promoting in recent years.
Former President Trump has made immigration a center point of
the campaign.
Meanwhile, Democrats looking to try and at least change that
messaging a little bit ahead of the 2024 election.
This is going to continue to be a massive theme.
Chris.
Nate, last month, as you reported, a bipartisan bill aimed
at fixing the southern border failed after Republicans backed away
even though they took part in negotiations.
Nate, what's keeping lawmakers from moving forward with a bipartisan
bill?
And I'm curious, how much does former President Trump planned
all of this?
Well, look, Democrats like to say that former President Trump,
it's his fault for this bipartisan bill not taking root.
Remember, it was a bipartisan bill that was negotiated by
a Senate Democrat, a independent, independent in the Senate and
the Senate Republican, Senator James Lankford, the Republican of Oklahoma.
I had a chance earlier today to chat with the
lead Democrat on the bill, Senator Chris Murphy, the Democrat
from Connecticut, about President Biden's decision to resort to executive
action.
Here's what he told me.
The reality is Republicans have been pretty consistent for the
last several months.
They are not going to do anything or support anything
that will bring order to the southwest border because they
believe it helps them politically for the border to be
a mess.
That's just the place we are.
Democrats are serious about trying to fix the problem of
the border.
Republicans see this issue only as one that they can
exploit for political purposes.
I hate that that's where we are.
I wish Republicans would have listened to James Lankford.
They're appointed negotiator and supported the deal we reached.
But unfortunately, they're putting Trump before the security of this
country.
Let's just remember the political reality here in Washington.
You've got a Democrat in the White House.
Democrats control the US Senate across the Capitol Plaza.
For me, Republicans control the House of Representatives right behind
me.
That means you basically need bipartisan support to get anything
across the finish line.
Republicans have repeatedly said and have repeated it earlier today,
they don't believe it's possible to do anything on immigration
in advance of the 2024 election.
That means it's only going to continue to be a
campaign issue.
But the question of immigration and the issues that are
well documented, the southern border with Mexico will likely remain
unsolved going into the 2024 election.
Chris.
Congressional correspondent Nathaniel Reed live on Capitol Hill.
Nate, thank you.