Overview:
He'll join other South Texas mayors in D.C. Tuesday, where the White House is expected to a revive Trump-era rule to turn back asylum seekers.
This story has been updated.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg was back in D.C. this week, praising the White House’s strict new border policies aimed at limiting the number of asylum-seeking migrants who can come into the country on a single day.
On Tuesday the White House called for the U.S to begin turning migrants back once the number of arrivals between ports of entry reaches 2,500 in a single day. That limit is currently being exceeded on a daily basis, according to CNN.
The executive order immediately drew criticism from both the left and right for different reasons, making Nirenberg and other mayors valuable validators on a controversial decision.
President Joe Biden’s new policy takes inspiration from a Trump-era rule that Democrats denounced at the time, and that Republicans said should have been invoked last year when migrant arrivals were high. The American Civil Liberties Union was planning a legal challenge before it had even been announced.
Nirenberg and other South Texas mayors flew to D.C. to stand with the president Tuesday for the formal announcement.
On Wednesday, Nirenberg appeared on CNN and MSNBC to stump for the policy. He also joined two high-level White House officials on a press call aimed at playing up its appeal with the political middle.
“We were proud yesterday to be joined by people like Mayor Nirenberg and other border mayors — Republicans, Democrats and independents,” White House senior adviser Tom Perez said on the call.
“These folks don’t have time for political gamesmanship, they’re solving problems day in and day out,” Perez said. “They reviewed the bill that we had proposed, they saw that it would help them do their jobs, and they were excited and proud to support it.”
Interim Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Kristie Canegallo was also on the call.
The new policy comes as the number of asylum-seekers arriving in San Antonio has been trending downward for months, but the city’s Migrant Resource Center has been kept open in case numbers again rise.
On the press call, Nirenberg said San Antonio is both “pro-migrant” and “pro-asylum,” having helped more than 617,000 migrants pass through the city on their way to other destinations in the past year and a half.
But he pointed to challenges like the city’s recent scramble to identify funding for migrant aid when Congress was unable to agree on a spending bill earlier this year. San Antonio and other cities were stuck weighing whether to feed and shelter migrants using local funds, or suspend that aid until more federal funding came.
“We’ve risked cutting local services at the expense of a federal problem,” Nirenberg said. “ … Obviously if we had to make the choice of safety and compassion for people over new parks and potholes in the streets, we’d choose humanity time and time again. But it shouldn’t have to be this way.”
Perez chimed in to say he admires “the Mayor Nirenbergs of the world” who are “doing God’s work” in helping migrants.
Texas Republicans so far have responded to the White House with skepticism, questioning why the administration waited to make the move when numbers were much higher last year.
“When our border communities needed help the most, this administration left us out to dry,” said U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio), who helped negotiate a bill with a similar system to cap asylum seekers last year. That bill was rejected by Senate Republicans.
Progressives, meanwhile, worry the policy will stop families from being able to use the asylum process to escape persecution and violence in their home countries.
“If this executive order goes into effect, it’s likely that every future president, especially Republicans, will use and expand it to choke off immigration and the right to asylum,” U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) said in a statement. “ … This executive order is the wrong approach and goes too far.”
Nirenberg joined Biden in Brownville after Gonzales’ compromised bill died in the Senate, calling for the President to take action as a result of Congress’ failure. On Wednesday, he defended the President’s solution as the best possible option barring Congressional action.
“You have a President who is really the only one trying something, anything, because doing nothing is not an option,” Nirenberg said on the call.
