“Unfortunately,the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government,” Pritzker wrote in a letter to the president.
After months of insisting “the border is secure”,Biden’s secretary of homeland security,Alejandro Mayorkas,issued a notice on Friday announcing the government would waive the 26 laws and regulations,essentially making it easier to avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits as it constructs about 30 kilometres of a wall section along the Rio Grande that separates Mexico from the US.
The move is the administration’s first use of an executive power often used by Trump to fund projects along the southern border.
Biden said he still believed a border wall was ineffective but told reporters that he had no choice but to use the money as it had been appropriated for wall construction in 2019. He added that he tried to get it redirected,but was unable to do so.
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The issue is likely to prove contentious given Biden’s previous position and his party’s repeated attacks on Trump’s signature policy.
For instance,two months before the 2020 election,Biden declared in an interview:“There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration”.
Then,after winning the election,he signed an executive order in 2021 repealing Trump-era policies and said that building a wall at the southern border was “a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security”.
“Will Joe Biden apologise to me and America for taking so long to get moving,and allowing our country to be flooded with 15 million illegals immigrants,from places unknown,” Trump wrotein a Truth Social postwithout substantiating the claim. “I will await his apology!”
Progressive Democrats were angered by Biden’s announcement,warning that a wall would “do nothing” to deter people fleeing violence and poverty from coming to the US.
“The president needs to take responsibility for this decision and reverse course,” said New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The backflip underscores the political and policy challenge that Biden – who has had about6 million asylum seekers detained or intercepted under his watch – faces ahead of next year’s election.
According to a recent Gallup poll,his overall approval rating sits at a low 42 per cent,but Americans view his performance on immigration to be much worse,at 31 per cent.
The border is one of the biggest challenges in the US,largely due to global shifts in migration caused by economic and political decline across many South and Central American nations,such as Venezuela,Nicaragua and Cuba. Migrants intercepted at the border also include some coming from African and South Asian countries.
One of the main problems underpinning the broken immigration system is that there is no efficient and effective pathway to help people seek asylum,leaving many in a state of limbo for months,if not years,as they await court hearings.
One family this masthead recently spoke to in El Paso walked for 75 days from Venezuela to get into the country,but now have to wait until March 2027 for a court date.
While Democrats have traditionally taken a cautious approach to the issue,the White House has hardened in recent months,coinciding with Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis of Florida sending scores of migrants to Democratic cities such as Martha’s Vineyard to goad the president over the crisis.
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Under tougher new rules,people won’t be able to seek asylum in the US unless they have first applied for,and been denied,legal protection in another country. Those sent back could also be banned from re-entering the US for a minimum of five years and risk criminal prosecution for repeated attempts.
Hours after the reversal,the administration also declared it would resume direct deportations of Venezuelans,sending them back to a nation in political and economic upheaval,rather than partner countries such as the Dominican Republic.
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