Excellent progress has been made on reducing the number of illegal crossings between ports of entry on the southern border. Apprehensions dropped from 117,905 in May to 85,536 in June and to 56,399 in July; they rose slightly to 58,038 in August.

White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández attributes the decrease in illegal crossings to the Biden-Harris administration’s June 4 proclamation on securing the border and an accompanying Interim Final Rule (IFR) that bars most illegal crossers from seeking asylum when they are apprehended.

But is Hernández right that the administration’s actions caused the reduction? The United States worked on the reduction with the Mexican government; perhaps credit should go to the Mexican government instead.

How serious could this administration possibly be in stopping illegal crossings? During its first three and a half years, it released more than 5.4 million migrants into the country who didn’t have visas or other valid entry documents, including at least 99 who were on the terrorist watchlist.

Frankly, I am not impressed with the administration’s proclamation or the accompanying IFR; I think the credit for the reduction should go to Mexico.

Proclamation

The proclamation suspends the entry of migrants who cross the southern border illegally, but the suspension will be discontinued 14 calendar days after the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security determines that encounters with illegal crossers have averaged less than 1,500 per day for seven consecutive calendar days.

A discontinued suspension will be reinstated if the secretary determines there has been an average of 2,500 or more encounters with illegal crossers for seven consecutive days.
In addition, suspensions don’t necessarily apply to every illegal crosser. The proclamation gives Border Patrol officers discretion to ignore the suspension when they think it is warranted by the “totality of the circumstances” or “operational considerations.”

These conditions are so vague that it will be easy for Border Patrol to justify ignoring the suspension whenever they choose to do so.

Interim Final Rule

Read more at:

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigrat...ssings-border/

Published originally on The Hill.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.