06.04.24

Hoeven: We Need More than Rhetoric, President Biden Must Enforce the Law and Secure the Border

WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven today pushed back against the Biden administration’s continued refusal to enforce the law and secure the border. The senator called out an executive order being issued by the president today, stressing that it lacks the policies needed to actually secure the border, while containing broad exceptions that allow the illegal immigration crisis, as well as drug and human trafficking, to continue. Accordingly, Hoeven is pressing the administration to:

  • Reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or Remain in Mexico Policy, which required people seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in Mexico while their case was adjudicated.
  • Strictly Enforce the Safe Third Country Agreements requiring that those coming from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala seek asylum there first, otherwise be returned to await the outcome of their claims. 
  • Resume construction of the border wall at the nation’s southern border and put in place the technology, infrastructure and personnel needed to secure the border, utilizing funding Congress has already appropriated.

“When President Biden came into office, he issued 70 executive orders on the border and immigration, with more than 10 million people entering the U.S. illegally during his tenure. Now, five months before the election, he is going to issue one executive order that is supposedly going to secure the border, except it doesn’t,” said Hoeven. “How bad does it have to get before we look through the rhetoric and lip service, and finally secure the border? All President Biden has to do is enforce the law and reinstate and enforce the Remain in Mexico Policy and Third Safe Country Agreements.”

            Illegal encounters at the southern border continue to reach record numbers, rising from 1.7 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 to over 2.4 million in FY2023, with more than 1.5 million illegal encounters already occurring in FY2024. Further, 169 individuals on the terror watchlist were apprehended attempting to illegally cross the southern border in FY23, followed by 80 such apprehensions so far in FY2024.

            In response, Hoeven has been working to call attention to the illegal immigration crisis and push back on President Biden’s open border policies. Hoeven met with North Dakota National Guard members in Del Rio, Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas in recent years to highlight their missions in support of Customs and Border Protection operations. The senator has also reviewed border operations in the Rio Grande Valley and Brownsville, Texas, and traveled with a bipartisan congressional delegation to Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Guatemala to outline the need to work with these nations to stop illegal immigration and prevent human and drug trafficking. 

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