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1 1 (April 12, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govzik0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ *.Research Service Can the President Close the Border? Relevant Laws and Considerations April 12, 2019 Does the executive branch have authority to close the southern border? Recently, President Trump declared that he would order the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border or at least large sections of it, unless Mexico acts to stop flows of migrants and drugs into the United States or unless Congress enacts certain reforms to the immigration system. The statements presumably refer to the closure of land ports of entry on the border (federal laws already prohibit entry between ports, and a Trump Administration policy that would have rendered non-U.S. nationals (aliens) who violate those laws ineligible for asylum protections has been blocked by federal courts, as explained in a separate Legal Sidebar). The President later declared that he would give Mexico a one-year warning before placing tariffs on cars made in Mexico or closing the border. His statements have prompted legal questions about the reach of executive authority to close ports of entry on the southern border to people and goods. Little federal case law addresses these questions. Although recent media articles discuss at least four occasions when past presidents have restricted operations at ports of entry on the southern border, those executive measures apparently did not prompt legal challenges that required federal courts to assess the Executive's authority for the measures. The measures taken on at least one of the occasions covered in the articles-the aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963-may have constituted a full closure of ports of entry on the southern border for much of the afternoon and evening of November 22, 1963. On another occasion, President Reagan ordered the closure of nine ports of entry for a matter of days after the abduction of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in Mexico in 1985. On two other occasions-President Nixon's Operation Intercept in 1969 and President George W. Bush's post-9/11 measures-the restrictions consisted primarily of extensive inspections that brought border traffic to a standstill, according to the reports. Federal statutes grant the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) general authority over operations to secure the border and specific authority to close temporarily any ... port of entry when necessary to protect national interests. Other statutes give the President broad authority to suspend the entry of non- U.S. citizens. Together, these statutes probably authorize a range of targeted executive measures to close a port of entry or to restict operations at some ports, at least in some circumstances. Whether the statutes authorize more sweeping executive action to close many or all of the ports of entry on the southern border to most or all people and goods, however, is a question with which federal courts have not grappled and Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10283 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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