(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order addressing immigration and border security Tuesday, a border community leader told NewsNation.
Multiple outlets have reported that Biden is preparing to take executive action on immigration this week, though the White House referred NewsNation to previous comments that it is always evaluating options, but no final decision has been made.
“From day one, the administration has always evaluated what actions could be taken. There haven’t been any final decisions regarding what additional executive actions, if any, could be taken,” the White House said.
Biden is weighing granting himself the power to deport immigrants in the country illegally once crossings reach 4,000 per day, a threshold that’s frequently exceeded, including this past April.
The anticipated order comes as Biden faces mounting criticism from both parties over the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, with record numbers of migrant encounters straining federal resources.
Some border mayors invited to attend announcement
The community leader, who requested anonymity, told NewsNation that the White House has been contacting mayors of border cities about potentially attending the announcement.
At least two Texas border mayors will head to Washington on Tuesday. Brownsville, Texas, Mayor John Cowen and Edinburg, Texas, Mayor Ramiro Garza confirmed to the Associated Press that they were invited.
However, the list of those not invited is just as notable as those who were. NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley confirmed the mayor of El Cajon, California, in the Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector, wasn’t contacted.
Additionally, the mayor of Sierra Vista, Arizona, stated that no one reached out to him. He told Bradley that he would love to speak to Biden about the experience in southern Arizona, suggesting that Biden might have been displeased with the letter he and a coalition of Cochise County mayors sent to his office requesting he take action.
As of Sunday, according to the Associated Press, the Democratic mayor of Eagle Pass, the Texas-Mexico border town where the number of migrants led to a state-federal clash over border security, had not received an invitation.
That decision leaves some communities hit hardest by the border crisis out in the cold.
Notably, the mayor of San Diego hasn’t received an invitation. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data from April, San Diego saw the most migrant apprehensions, accounting for more than 20% of all southern border apprehensions that month, followed by Tucson, Arizona, and Laredo, Texas.
Executive order ‘too little too late’: Speaker Johnson
If Biden signs the executive order, the immediate question will be: Why now? Why not do this sooner?
When NewsNation asked, the White House maintained that they needed Congress to act and blamed former President Donald Trump for tanking a bipartisan border deal.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., declined to give the Biden administration credit for acting on the U.S. border as they work to clamp down on illegal immigration. He said the bill is “too little too late now” on “Fox News Sunday.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., also weighed in on the executive order on “The Hill Sunday.”
“The devil is always in the details. Like that Senate bill that came through, there were a lot of great ideas. But for every good idea, there was a loophole on the next page that basically meant nothing. So, I would want to make sure that we’re building the wall, that we are limiting and banning these people from coming across the border illegally look over nine million illegals of cross into our country,” she said.
On Sunday, Mexico elected a new president, who will become the first woman president in the country’s 200-year history. NewsNation correspondent Kellie Meyer asked a reporter on the ground there if Biden was waiting until after that to make this move, and he said yes.