US President Biden backs Senate border deal, vows to shut down border when overwhelmed
Joe Biden said on Friday that the border deal being negotiated in the U.S. Senate was the «toughest and fairest» set of reforms possible and vowed to shut down the border the day he signs the bill.
«What's been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we've ever had in our country,» Biden said in a statement.
«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,» he said.
Biden's comments come after bipartisan U.S. Senate talks on a border security deal that some have set as a condition for further Ukraine aid hit a critical point, lawmakers said on Thursday.
A small group of senators have spent months trying to iron out an agreement to address the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.
In these talks, the White House has agreed to the creation of a new migrant expulsion power that would allow migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally to be rapidly returned to Mexico if daily apprehensions surpassed 4,000 per day, two sources familiar with the matter said.
If apprehensions passed 5,000 per day, the use of the expulsion authority would become mandatory, they said.
In December, apprehensions averaged more than 8,000 per day, according to U.S.
