(UnitedVoice.com) – President Joe Biden is in negotiations with Congress over a bipartisan immigration bill. One of the alleged terms of the plan is that the president would be allowed to shut down the border if too many migrants come into the country. A reporter recently asked the press secretary about it and compared it to the way former President Donald Trump was treated for threatening something similar.
On January 26, Biden announced that the bill lawmakers are working on would give him authority to close the border until it gets under control. A few days later, a reporter pointed out to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that when Trump said he was going to shut down the border in 2019, people called him “racist” and “xenophobic.” The journalist asked why Biden isn’t being called the same names when he used “almost identical language.”
The press secretary explained that shutting down the border would have “a different definition” than it did in the past.
In 2019, when Trump threatened to shut down the border, he meant it would be completely closed. There was outrage from people who were angry that legal immigration and billions of dollars worth of trade would be impacted by the shutdown. The threat to close the border was something the 45th president often said he would do but never followed through.
Under the latest plan, Biden would be given the authorization to close the border if the daily average for migrant encounters reaches 5,000 in seven days, or if it hits 8,500 in a single day. Unlike Trump’s plan, while the border is shut down, Border Patrol would still allow up to 1,400 migrants per day to cross at the legal ports of entry. The border would remain closed until the number of encounters dropped below 75% and stayed there for a week. Experts predict the border could stay closed for weeks.
In other words, while Trump would have actually shut down the border, the Biden administration wants to use the tough language while still allowing migrants into the country, albeit at a much slower and controlled pace.
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