Biden border order won't have 'any impacts,' says West Virginia Sen. Capito

President Joe Biden’s recently announced executive order on immigration won’t have any effect on the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, said U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

The order is an election-year measure likely to face legal challenges that will delay its implementation, Capito said Wednesday during her weekly media briefing.

“I don’t think this will have any impacts,” she said. “I think that it’s too little, too late, and it’s obviously a political maneuver by a president who sees his numbers tanking because the American people are concerned with the effects of illegal immigration all throughout the country.”

The new immigration policy, announced by the White House on Tuesday, would effectively close the U.S.-Mexico border when daily illegal entry numbers hit 2,500. The border would then remain closed until the average number of illegal border crossings falls below 1,500 for seven consecutive days.

Biden’s order is similar to a 2018 policy enacted during the administration of former President Donald Trump that was later struck down by a federal court ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which led the legal challenge against the Trump-era policy, said it also plans to mount a challenge against Biden’s order.

“It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, in a statement released Tuesday.

Such challenges will take some time to work through the courts, Capito said.

“It’s already going to be challenged in the courts, which will tie this up for months and years,” she said. “If the president had not undone President Trump’s executive orders that were leading to much, much lower numbers at the border, we wouldn’t be in this position.”

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., during an appearance on CNN Tuesday evening, said the situation at the border with Mexico is the nation’s “most serious crisis that we face right now.”

“We have people coming into our country who haven’t been vetted, and this is something that had to be done,” he said. “It should have been done sooner, but I support the president’s decision.”