President Biden’s executive action on the border was reported with great fanfare across the dial. With the order now in effect, only NBC has dared to report that the executive action has been largely ineffective in stopping the inflow of illegal migrants across our southern border.
Watch as correspondent Julia Ainsley lays out the ways in which the border executive order has been largely ineffective:
JULIA AINSLEY: Tonight, new evidence migrants who cross the border illegally are still being released into the U.S. by border agents, one week after President Biden signed an executive action suspending their entry.
JOE BIDEN: If they choose to come without permission and against the law, they'll be restricted from receiving asylum and staying in the United States.
AINSLEY: But NBC News has learned Border Patrol is still releasing many migrants into the U.S. who crossed illegally, to pursue asylum claims. A senior DHS official tells NBC News those releases have dropped by more than half but are still happening because agents don't have enough space to detain the large numbers of arriving migrants. An internal memo to Border Patrol agents in San Diego directs agents there to release migrants into the United States, unless they are from these eight countries.
Interestingly, the report was framed with news that the ACLU is suing the Biden Administration over the executive order- which could have been its own brief, or added at the end of the report on the still-leaky border. But NBC didn’t want to lead with news of the apparent failure of Biden’s executive action.
There are many instances of failure reported here, from the amount of encounters post-order to the lack of detention space, to what is likely the most damning portion of the report- the order to release migrants coming from all countries except those closest to the United States. Shocking, given recent news of the bust of the potential ISIS-K sleeper cell.
Credit to NBC for documenting these failures, and doing something we used to call journalism- a word that means something increasingly different these days.
Click "expand" to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the NBC Nightly News on Wednesday, June 12th, 2024:
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
6/12/24
6:41:12
LESTER HOLT: Just in, the ACLU filing the first major legal challenge to President Biden's recent executive order -- executive action on the border and new reports that migrants crossing illegally are still being released into the U.S. Here's Julia Ainsley.
JULIA AINSLEY: Tonight, new evidence migrants who cross the border illegally are still being released into the U.S. by border agents, one week after President Biden signed an executive action suspending their entry.
JOE BIDEN: If they choose to come without permission and against the law, they'll be restricted from receiving asylum and staying in the United States.
AINSLEY: But NBC News has learned Border Patrol is still releasing many migrants into the U.S. who crossed illegally, to pursue asylum claims. A senior DHS official tells NBC News those releases have dropped by more than half but are still happening because agents don't have enough space to detain the large numbers of arriving migrants. An internal memo to Border Patrol agents in San Diego directs agents there to release migrants into the United States, unless they are from these eight countries. Overall, illegal border crossings under the new policy are still high, but have dropped from 4,000 to 3,000 per day, DHS sources tell us. President Biden signed the executive action after fierce criticism of his handling of the border, with a record nearly 10 million migrants entering the U.S. since he took office. But the Border Patrol Union says the president's new action is not tough enough.
HECTOR GARZA: It's status quo. Things have not changed. This executive order has not made any significant impact as it relates to illegal border crossings.
AINSLEY: "We suffer a lot just to get here" says this Guatemalan woman waiting in Mexico to cross. And late today, immigration advocates suing, saying the asylum restrictions go too far.
LEE GELERNT: This ban is patently illegal. The Trump administration enacted a nearly identical asylum ban, we sued over that. We won, we hope to win again.
AINSLEYr: A senior DHS official tells us it's too soon to judge the new policy's effectiveness. They say they need more help from Congress to increase immigrant detention, and do more deportation flights. Lester.
HOLT: All right, Julia. Thank you.
