Immigration, border security standoff backdrop for State of the Union
President Joe Biden is set to address a wide range of issues at his State of the Union address Thursday night, but among the most pressing for many Americans is what to do about the southern border.
A growing share of Americans rank immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S., according to a recent Gallup survey. It marked the first time immigration has been named as the single most important issue since 2019.
Immigration policy more broadly has vexed presidential administrations throughout history. Congressional inaction in recent decades has left the president and the rest of the executive branch with a limited range of options for handling record volumes of migrants seeking a life in the United States.
Without a bipartisan immigration deal and given the closest attempt left out a pathway to citizenship for young people brought to the country illegally, many will watching how Biden might address DREAMers in Thursday's speech.
Biden has mentioned protections or a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers in each of his last three major congressional speeches.
The president is expected to address immigration in his speech by making a case for reform similar to what he laid out on his recent trip to the border, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
He is not expected to announce new executive action on immigration and the official said he will continue to call on Republicans to pass bipartisan border security measures.
"You have a Congress that refuses to get anything done," Immigration Hub Deputy Director Beatriz Lopez told ABC News. "There's a lot of things that are within the administration's control and there's a lot of things that aren't. And being able to acquire the resources to both invest in border security -- to increase capacity there -- to do a lot of things that Congress needs to deliver on -- that's Congress."
As a leading advocate against Trump-era immigration policies, Lopez said Biden should use his platform to highlight a series of immigration accomplishments from unwinding family separations to creating new legal routes for would-be immigrants.
But Biden's immigration wins may be over shadowed by the sheer influx of unauthorized migrants at the border.
Illegal crossing attempts on the rise again
Following a lull in January, illegal crossings of the southern border are back on the rise. The U.S. Border Patrol made more than 140,000 migrant apprehensions last month, up from about 125,000 in January, according to sources familiar with internal Customs and Border Protection data.
Over the past week, the Border Patrol has apprehended migrants about 5,230 times per day along the southern border, according to the data. That's up from about 3,100 at the beginning of the year.
Bipartisan Senate negotiations – recently scuttled by the Republican-controlled House – had produced an agreement that would implement strict border control measures if unauthorized crossing attempts were to exceed the 5,000 mark.
The issue extends beyond the border
While Republicans and Democrats generally agree that more funding is needed for border security, there are sharp divisions over how to treat those applying for humanitarian protection.
At issue is the growing backlog of more than 3.3 million pending cases before the nation's immigration courts.
The backlog speaks to the broader problem with the U.S. immigration system – with so many attempting to enter the U.S. authorities do not have the resources to quickly deliver decisions about who gets deported. Decisions about who is granted asylum often take several years to adjudicate.
Biden could face more legal roadblocks if he tries to restrict asylum further
The ACLU took legal action against the administration's asylum restrictions last year. That case was blocked by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning the policy has been allowed to continue. Negotiations are underway between the government and ACLU but it's unclear how any further asylum rules or restrictions would impact these discussions.
A broader resource issue is at play given the courts have upheld asylum rights regardless of where an individual entered the country.
ABC News' Luke Barr contributed to this report.
