Biden admin weighs executive order to stem migrant crisis, but experts say it's 'all for show': Report

The Biden administration recently stated that it is "examining" whether the president has the "power" to issue an executive order that aims to shut down the southern border. Experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the potential measure is "all for show."

On Tuesday, Univision released an interview with Biden in which he was questioned about his plans for stemming the flow of migrants entering the country through the southern border, Blaze News previously reported.

Univision's Enrique Acevedo asked the president whether he had "made a final decision on taking executive order in terms of what you want to do at the border, that includes the power to shut down the border."

Biden responded that he had "suggested that" but was not certain about "whether or not I have that power."

"And some have suggested I should just go ahead and try it. And if I get shut down by the court, I get shut down by the court. But we're trying to work that, work through that right now," he explained.

Following the interview, a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected."

The statement referred to the $118 billion, 370-page bill released by the Senate in February, which was criticized by Republicans. The bill included funding for military aid and southern border security provisions.

Several immigration experts told the DCNF that the Biden administration's potential plan to execute an executive order will not solve the migrant crisis.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told the news outlet, "If Biden confines his executive action to just tweaking the asylum laws, that is meaningless if he continues to wave people in on parole and hand them an indefinite work permit."

Since Biden took office, the White House has expanded its parole programs, allowing more migrants into the country. According to the Washington Post, the administration has granted parole to more than 2 million migrants, compared to 300,000 under the Trump administration.

"While it's fair to say that it would help if Congress were to act … the most impactful actions must come from the president. These include shutting down the catch-and-release policies, imposing consequences for illegal border crossing, ceasing the issuance of work permits, and allowing [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to do their job in the interior," Vaughan told DCNF.

"If he wanted to make it harder to abuse the asylum system, he has the power to do that now, and he has had it all along, but chose not to use it," Vaughan continued. "This is all for show, and he and his advisors are kidding themselves if they think this will work to reverse the loss of public trust in his administration."

Vaughan claimed that the current administration is unlikely to make any significant changes to border policies.

"He has had these policies for three years now and three years to see the problems and hear the concerns of people in communities around the country that are struggling to cope with the consequences," Vaughan added. "What would motivate him to change anything now?"

Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS, told DCNF that the administration would need to do more than change asylum law to solve the crisis.

"Reforming asylum law could help, but you'd have to actually deny people and then send them home right away, and then publicize this in the sending countries. For that to happen, you'd have to detain people, which we are not doing in so many cases," Camarota explained. "Recreating the 'Remain in Mexico' policy, getting cooperation from Central American countries again, ramping up interior enforcement, and most of all using detention significantly more, are all at least as important as changing the credible fear criteria. But the administration, as far as I know, is not talking about those things."

According to Elizabeth Jacobs, director of regulatory affairs and policy at CIS, the Biden administration's potential executive order will likely face legal challenges, which the White House likely anticipates.

"The entire purpose of such an executive order appears to be to fool American voters," Jacobs told the DCNF. "By issuing a 212f proclamation or an additional regulation purporting to restrict asylum eligibility, the administration can anticipate a bad court ruling from the Ninth Circuit."

"At that point, President Biden will have cover to tell voters that 'he tried' to address the border crisis, but will ultimately blame Congress for not acting to change our laws," Jacobs continued. "At the same time, the Biden administration will keep its policies that restrict officers' ability to enforce the laws that are already on the books and allow inadmissible aliens to be paroled en masse into the U.S., directly violating the laws Congress passed to regulate immigration."

The Biden administration did not respond to the DCNF's request for comment.

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