On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that President Joe Biden should act on the border and noted that Biden undid a lot of former President Donald Trump’s border policies and Biden hasn’t been shy about taking costly executive action on things like student loans.
Brooks said, “I think he should sign the executive orders. There are certain things I think he could do: Remain in Mexico, maybe more security. The money’s certainly a problem, but he’s taken executive action on all sorts of issues like student debt relief. And so, I think this would be a good — just politically, a very good thing to take some action [on].”
He continued, “Jonathan’s colleague, David Ignatius, had a very good column about a month ago about Mayorkas. And he made the point that, in the early days of the Biden administration, Biden wanted to be anti-Trump on the immigration issue. Everything Trump was for, he was going to be against. So, there was a moratorium on deportments — deportations. There [were] all sorts of other measures. They [were] going to — [do away with] the Remain in Mexico, so where they had the hearings in Mexico and not in the U.S. And so, they really went in — sort of in a leftward direction. Mayorkas was trying to fight this the whole time, and now the administration is pinioned, and he’s left hanging out by the Republicans. So, ideally, I agree with Jonathan, that Congress would do — pass that bill that gave Republicans like 60 or 70% of what they wanted.”
Brooks concluded, “But, in [the] absence of that, since Donald Trump’s against it, it’s not going to happen, I just think it’s imperative politically for Joe Biden to do something and see what happens in the courts.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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