Congressional Republicans argue that President Joe Biden already has all the authority he needs to halt the flow of migrants through the U.S.-Mexico border. They’re making the claim as a bipartisan deal that the president negotiated with senators to expand his authority is facing near-certain defeat.

Current and former officials at the Department of Homeland Security are expressing concern over President Joe Biden’s assertion this weekend that he wants the authority to “shut down” the border.

President Joe Biden Friday said he backs “significant policy changes” to asylum law, amid ongoing immigration policy negotiations between the White House and Senate tied to passage of a global security package.

In an attempt to pass federal supplemental budget measures, lawmakers in Congress have been seriously considering making harsh, permanent changes to immigration law behind closed doors. These proposals reduce immigrants to bargaining chips and would threaten families, communities, and our nation’s stated values of due process and justice for all.

The Texas Division of Emergency Management has confirmed buses carrying migrants to New Jersey are part of Operation Lone Star.

Those arrivals began when New York City Mayor Eric Adams instituted new rules about when those buses could arrive in New York.

Federal immigration court judges are overwhelmed by the number of cases coming to their courtrooms. KFOX spoke with Alexis Lucero, an immigration defense attorney, who said the pandemic, the change in administration and the constant influx of migrants seeking asylum has caused this overflow.

Backlogged U.S. immigration cases exceeded 3 million in November, according to new data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, TRAC, of Syracuse University.

Advocates also are concerned that President Joe Biden seems willing to compromise with Senate Republicans in an effort to pass the spending bill late this year or early next year, a move they said would be a "betrayal" of his commitment to advancing humane solutions to the nation's mass migration woes.

The administration would also back a nationwide expansion of a process known as expedited removal that allows immigration officials to deport migrants without court hearings if they don't ask for asylum or if they fail their initial asylum interviews. The program is currently limited to the border region.

Democrats are in negotiations with Republicans to restrict asylum, claiming that it is necessary to improve border security. But new data suggest that restricting asylum will make security worse.

“On my first day back in the White House, I will terminate every open-borders policy of the Biden administration. I will stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Trump said in Iowa Saturday.

The border has become a centerpiece of Abbott’s agenda and the subject of an escalating fight with the Biden administration over immigration. The three-term governor has approved billions of dollars in new border wall construction, authorized razor wire on the banks of the Rio Grande and bused thousands of migrants to Democrat-led cities across the United States.

Senate Republicans are seeking drastic limits on asylum and other immigration programs in an emergency funding package requested by President Biden that includes billions of dollars for Ukraine, Israel and other national security priorities, according to an outline of the senators' priorities released Monday.

Trump, the front-runner to secure the Republican presidential nomination, is relying on the same hardline immigration playbook he used during his 2016 campaign.

Despite more than 2.2 million apprehensions and expulsions by U.S. Border Patrol in 2022, the total number of illegal migrants crossing the border continues to climb, posing a security and humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.

The historically high 2.06 million in fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30, is another blow to the Biden administration after surpassing 2.2 million in 2022, particularly after the administration's claims for more than 30 months that its changes to border and immigration policies would reduce illegal crossings.

Some caught crossing the border into the United States, others picked up in sweeps by Mexican officials as part of ongoing U.S.-Mexico collaboration.

Now again facing a rapid increase in migration, the Biden administration announced Thursday it would resume deporting Venezuelan migrants back to their country.

The arrival of largely Venezuelan asylum seekers is part of a larger swell of immigrants who traveled dangerous routes on buses and cargo trains to Mexican border towns near San Diego, California, and the Texas cities of El Paso and Eagle Pass.

Just under half a million Venezuelans – many who arrived in the U.S. through the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso border – will be allowed to remain in the country and work legally for 18 months.