Biden and allies move swiftly to sell the public on his new border order

The White House, Biden campaign and allied Democrats are planning to supplement the president’s newly announced executive actions on the border with a public relations push that they hope will limit the electoral damage Republicans have inflicted on the issue.

Top officials within the administration have already begun a new round of media availabilities to promote the policy, while Democratic lawmakers and state officials are set to tout it back home. And down the road, the president’s team expects to use the executive action as a shield in both President Joe Biden’s debate with Donald Trump and at the convention this summer.

The goal, ultimately, is to ensure that Biden’s announcement of the new action — which gives him the authority to shut down asylum claims at the southern border between ports of entry should it become overwhelmed by a significant number of migrants — doesn’t become a one-off moment subsumed by other issues and storylines.

“With my Republican colleagues not wanting to take action on this, we’re at this point where the White House is taking some steps that I truly believe is going to make a big difference,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).

It also is designed to give Biden’s campaign, as well as Democratic candidates in key House and Senate races, the ammo they believe they need to push back on relentless Republican attacks. Shortly after the president made his announcement, the Democratic National Committee sent surrogates talking points pointing to the February defeat of a bipartisan border bill by congressional Republicans and laying out its preferred framing for the debate: “President Biden took action after Donald Trump and his MAGA friends said ‘no’ to border security.”

Republicans, including the Trump campaign, were quick to take umbrage with that portrayal, accusing the president of scrambling to solve a problem of his own creation and choosing to adopt only half measures. And for Biden, shifting the public’s long-held belief that Democrats are not as capable as Republicans at handling immigration, will be difficult.

Polling shows immigration has risen among the main concerns for voters in both parties, and is the top concern of Republicans. A February NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll found that 41 percent of Americans believe the GOP will do a better job of handling the issue.

Hoping to turn around those numbers, the White House on Tuesday booked interviews for administration officials and allied lawmakers on national broadcast, Spanish language media and regional press across the country, according to an White House official. That effort is expected to go through the week.

But how much more extensive the PR push will go beyond that is unclear. The Biden campaign did not say whether they planned any paid advertisements on the president’s new executive action. There was also no indication that Biden would make another trip to the border (shortly after his announcement, he left for France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day). A White House official said it’s likely that Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas will visit the border soon as the administration tries to drive home its message.

“The president is doing the right thing today,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, a Democrat in the border state of Arizona who advocated for executive action. “He’s taking strong executive action, and I think that politics will follow this good policy that the president has announced.”

Biden’s new executive action carries some risk within his own party. Progressives and immigration advocates are deeply frustrated at what they see as a return to Trump-era policies and worry about the long-term implications of Democrats embracing the new measures. The American Civil Liberties Union quickly said it would sue the administration over the action, threatening to stall it right at the point of implementation.

Immigration advocates and progressives are still holding out hope that the administration would follow Tuesday’s tough action with relief for long-term, undocumented residents like caregivers, farmworkers and spouses of U.S. citizens later this year. White House officials have not taken these policy moves off the table, according to three people familiar with the administration’s thinking, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. But a final decision could ultimately depend on how much political pressure is facing the president in the months ahead.

The Biden campaign, for now, appears comfortable with its positioning. The president on Tuesday stood next to mayors from border cities and fellow Democratic lawmakers supportive of his new approach. In attendance was Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) — whose February special election race was seen among Biden campaign officials as proof that going aggressive on border security could appeal to a swath of independent voters; and, perhaps as importantly, defang Republican attacks on the issue.

Democratic Senate candidates have already posted ads on Republican opposition to the Senate border bill — particularly in the face of Democrats’ support for anti-fentanyl policies — and have talked about the local effect in non-border states like Ohio. Many of the Democratic candidates in battleground states are expected to maintain that drumbeat following Tuesday’s announcement.

But Republicans showed no signs that they would simply retreat from the debate. The Trump campaign blasted the executive actions as an invitation for migrants to come to the United States. National Republican Congressional Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said the order was “too little, too late,” and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) called it an “election year border charade.”

Suozzi, in an interview Monday night ahead of the announcement, said it was “the height of hypocrisy” for Republicans to “say too little too late,” pointing to their opposition to the bipartisan border bill.

But on Tuesday, there were also indications that Biden saw a need to ensure that progressives didn’t feel like he was giving away too much in search of a modest political gain.

“I will never demonize immigrants. I will never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of a country. And further, I will never separate children from their families at the border,” Biden said, making a clear contrast with his predecessor and current opponent. He added that those who believe his approach is too harsh need to “be patient.”

Eugene Daniels contributed to this report.