How Biden's partial ban on asylum claims could impact Texas
DALLAS - President Joe Biden unveiled an executive order this Tuesday limiting asylum claims along the southern border, with the aim of deterring illegal crossings. When it comes to the Texas-Mexico border, the policy could mean even lower crossings for a region that's already seen these numbers fall in the last year.
The order strictly limits who can claim asylum when crossing the border between legal ports of entry when the number of illegal crossings reaches an average threshold of 2,500 per day over a week. The policy would allow federal law enforcement to quickly deport most people who cross illegally.
Some parts of the U.S.-Mexico border have seen rising numbers of migrants coming across in recent months, but in Texas, the numbers are already falling, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
CBP reports its data by sector, and the Texas-Mexico border is comprised of four sectors entirely within Texas, in addition to the El Paso sector, which includes the western tip of Texas and all of New Mexico.
In the first four months of 2024, CBP reports that encounters are down nearly one-third from the same period in 2023. Excluding the data from El Paso and New Mexico, encounters are down 25.8%.
The new policy could help drive the encounters down even further, according to Biden, easing the burden on the asylum system in the U.S., which already faces a backlog of more than 3 million cases.
Democratic Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas agreed, saying in a statement Tuesday that "if it is implemented correctly this Executive Order could bring long overdue relief to our border communities." Allred is also the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat on the ballot this November.
His opponent, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, held a news conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, along with Sen. John Cornyn and other Republicans, slamming Biden's order as simply election-year politics.
"He could have stopped this every single day of his presidency ... The only question anyone should ask is, why didn't you do this in 2021? Why didn't you do this in 2022? Why didn't you do this in 2023?" Cruz said.
The new policy takes effect Tuesday night at 11:01 p.m. CT.