White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said President Biden has no plans to issue executive action during his scheduled visit to the border later this week, reiterating the administration’s stance that legislation is the best solution to address the border crisis.
Asked by a reporter whether the president had anything planned during his scheduled visit Thursday to Brownsville, Texas, Jean-Pierre said the White House had nothing to announce.
"We've spoken to executive [action] many times. We think the bottom line is the way to deal with the challenge that we see at the border, what we see with this immigration, a broken immigration system that has been broken for decades, is if Republicans have moved forward with the bipartisan deal that came out of the Senate."
The Biden administration has repeatedly slammed Republicans for backing out of the bipartisan border deal earlier this month, after Trump came out in opposition to the plan to tighten asylum restrictions and create daily limits on border crossings.
Jean-Pierre later reiterated the White House’s position that executive action would not amount to what bipartisan legislation could achieve if enacted into law.
"What [the bipartisan legislation] would have done is been the toughest but also the fairest deal with providing resources," Jean-Pierre said.
Biden and former President Donald Trump are both scheduled to make dueling trips to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday. Biden will travel to Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, an area that often sees large numbers of border crossings.
Trump, meanwhile, will go to Eagle Pass, Texas, about 325 miles away from Brownsville, another hot spot.
Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council which endorsed the bipartisan border deal, is expected to join Trump at the border. Jean-Pierre declined to comment on why Judd was not invited to meet with Biden.
Tuesday’s press conference came after congressional leaders held what was described as an "intense" meeting in the Oval Office with Biden about a legislative logjam that has major ramifications not just for the U.S. but for the world as Ukraine struggles to repel Russia's invasion with weapons and ammunition starting to run short.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-LA, who rejected a U.S. Mexico border security compromise that was eventually stripped from the final product, signaled no change in his position on Ukraine aid. He said the Senate's package "does nothing" to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, the GOP's demand in return for helping Ukraine.
"The first priority of the country is our border, and making it secure," Johnson said.
