Joe Biden vows to get tough on border security if Congress will pass a ‘bipartisan bill’

President Biden promised Friday that he is ready to get tough on border security, but said he wants Congress to pass legislation to give him new tools before he’ll do so.

Mr. Biden issued a statement trying to deliver legislative CPR to a faltering deal on Capitol Hill. He said he’s eager to sign something Congress produces in a bipartisan fashion.

In particular, he said he’s excited to flex a new expulsion power that would kick in when illegal immigration crosses 5,000 migrants caught in a day.

“It would give me, as president, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” Mr. Biden said.

It was a stark reversal for Mr. Biden, who has spent the last three years erasing just those kinds of powers that the Trump administration turned over to him.

Among them was the Remain in Mexico policy, which relied on already existing law to push illegal immigrants back into Mexico to await the outcomes of their immigration cases, and the Title 42 pandemic border expulsion authority, which Mr. Biden spent years trying to cancel before finally succeeding last May.

The president, in his statement, didn’t say why he’s more eager to use the new expulsion power being discussed on Capitol Hill.

But he did say he’s eager to sign legislation.

“Securing the border through these negotiations is a win for America,” he said. “For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it. If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it.”

The Washington Times has reported that the deal being worked on by Senate Republicans and Democrats would grant immediate work permits to illegal immigrants Mr. Biden is catching and releasing, and would also include authority to issue tens of thousands more legal immigrant visas and hundreds of thousands of guest-worker permits. It would also offer taxpayer-funded lawyers to some illegal immigrants, particularly children.

Republicans say it would also increase the country’s capacity to deport some illegal immigrants and tighten the rules for claiming asylum.

But it’s not clear what new limits would be placed on Mr. Biden’s power of “parole,” a key tool he and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have used to usher in millions of illegal immigrants.

Analysts have questioned how much the deal would actually decrease illegal immigration.

The negotiations stalled as details leaked and House Republicans made clear that deal would go nowhere in the lower chamber, even if it did clear the Senate. Former President Donald Trump also weighed in this week, saying Republicans should reject any deal that doesn’t fully solve the border.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had been pushing for a deal, also sounded grim about prospects, saying the politics had changed with Mr. Trump’s increasingly likely lock on the GOP presidential nomination.

House Republicans say part of their reluctance to embrace a deal is that they don’t trust Mr. Biden to carry out any laws they do pass, based on his circumventing of existing immigration laws that already mandate detention for most illegal immigrants caught at the border.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has also said that Mr. Biden can act on his own, pointing out that he unwound the get-tough Trump policies that had largely solved the border in 2020, and he can put them back.

Homeland Security reported encountering more than 370,000 unauthorized migrants in December alone. That’s roughly four times higher than in December 2020, the last full month on Mr. Trump’s watch.

Mr. Biden is taking serious flak from his left flank for agreeing to some of the asylum and deportation changes, with immigrant-rights advocates calling them “anti-immigrant.”