Biden pledged the “strictest and fairest” reforms to immigration policy

President Joe Biden said the border security package currently being debated in the Senate is the “strictest and fairest” set of reforms possible and promised to close the border the day the bill is signed into law.

“What has been agreed to, if passed into law, will be the most rigorous and fair set of reforms for border security we have ever had in this country,” Biden said in a statement.

“It would give me, as president, new emergency authority to close the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if I am granted that authority, I will use it the day I sign the bill,” he said.

Biden’s comments came after bipartisan talks in the Senate on border security, which some see as a condition for further aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the situation on the border has reached a critical point, lawmakers said Thursday.

A small group of senators has been trying for months to negotiate a deal to regulate the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.

During those talks, the White House agreed to a new structure for migrant removal that would allow illegal immigrants crossing the border to be quickly returned back to Mexico if the number of apprehensions per day exceeds 4,000, two sources familiar with the situation said.

If the number of apprehensions exceeds 5,000 a day, the use of the removal authority would become mandatory, they added.

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