President Biden signed an executive order today shutting down the asylum process for migrants, as he tries to quell a crisis at the border.
Border crossings have actually dropped so far this year, but the president says the system is overwhelmed and he has to act, since Congress won’t.
It’s quite an about-face for the Democratic president, who blasted President Trump when he used a similar approach to try to keep immigrants from coming here illegally. President Biden took great pains to point out the differences between what he is doing and what then-president Trump tried to do, but for now the impact would be similar: stopping migrants from crossing the border without authorization and then applying for asylum. Today’s order will be challenged in court, with the ACLU and others already saying they will sue to try to block it, as they did successfully when Trump was president.
For more on the political impact of this extraordinary move, we are joined live today on the KCBS Ring Central Newsline by Dr. Anna Sampaio, professor of Ethnic Studies and Political Science at Santa Clara University, where she specializes in race and gender politics.
