Biden issues rule allowing him to shut down US-Mexico border as immigration emerges as top voter concern

President Joe Biden issued an order on Tuesday allowing him to shut down the US-Mexico border amid high numbers of daily crossings, as immigration emerges as a top voter concern in the 2024 presidential race.

The presidential proclamation will allow the United States to close the southern border to asylum seekers who cross into America between established ports of entry.

Biden had previously hinted that he would take such executive actions after a bipartisan deal to enact the first major immigration legislation in decades foundered, twice failingto pass the Senate earlier this year after Republicans came out against it, at the behest of former president Donald Trump.

In remarks delivered from the White House, Biden said he’d done “what Republicans in Congress refused to do” by taking steps to secure the US-Mexico border.

He pointed out the border security bill rejected by the GOP had been the product of negotiations that resulted in “a clear bipartisan deal that was the strongest border security agreement in decades” only to see it scuttled on orders from Trump.

“He told the Republicans… that he didn’t want to fix the issue. He wanted to use it to attack me,” Biden said, calling Trump’s gambit “a complete disservice to the American people who are looking for us to not to weaponize the border, but to fix it.”

Biden said he was moving past Republican obstruction by using his executive authority to do what he can to address the border, though he again noted he’d have preferred to have done so by signing bipartisan legislation.

“Today I’m announcing actions to bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Migrants will be restricted from receiving asylum at our southern border unless they