President Joe Biden said he hoped the passing of executive border action would happen "by itself."
Biden made his remark to a reporter during a Monday visit to New Hampshire.
“Mr. President, when is a border executive action coming?” one reporter asked. “An executive action on the border.”
“I’m counting on the border action happening by itself," Biden responded. "The passing it."
Last month, Biden reportedly considered enacting executive action to restrict asylum after a bipartisan negotiated border bill failed to pass in the Senate. “The Administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said of the bill's failure to pass in a statement. “No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected." "We continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border,” he added. In early February, Biden said he would have shut down the nation's southern border upon the bill's passage. “If the bill were law today, it would qualify to be shut down right now while we repair it,” Biden said. Immigration expert Stephen Yale-Loehr noted the president maintains some authority to enact border security measures. “President Biden has broad powers under the immigration statute, but they are not unlimited," Yale-Loehr told CNN. "Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows a president to suspend the entry of noncitizens who are ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.'" "But that doesn’t mean he can just shut the border to everyone,” he added. Over the weekend, Biden faced backlash after he referred to the murderer of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley as an "illegal" during his Thursday State of the Union (SOTU) address.
During a Saturday interview with MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart, Biden addressed his use of the term during his SOTU address.
"I shouldn't have used 'illegal,'" the president said before correcting himself. "It's 'undocumented.'"
On Monday, White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton clarified Biden's MSNBC remarks, insisting his statement was not an apology.
"First of all, I want to be really clear about something: The President absolutely did not apologize," Dalton said, per The Daily Mail. "There was no apology anywhere in that conversation. He did not apologize. He used a different word."
Dalton added, "It's unconscionable that there are some people who are playing politics with this young woman's tragic murder."
