MCALLEN, Texas – San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg was among the Texas mayors in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday for President Joe Biden’s announcement about the Texas border.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar also attended the event.
The president issued an executive order limiting the number of migrants allowed to seek asylum in the U.S.
Nirenberg’s director of communications, Bruce Davidson, told KSAT that the same Texas mayors who met with Biden in Brownsville in February were invited to attend the announcement.
“I expect President Biden’s announcement to be an important development for San Antonio and the border region. Congress has failed to enact the immigration reform our nation needs, and President Biden has been forced to cope with a crisis largely created by congressional inaction,” Nirenberg said.
Brownsville Mayor John Cowen and Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza both confirmed they were invited by the White House for the immigration announcement.
Notably, the Democratic mayor of Eagle Pass, the Texas-Mexico border town where the number of migrants led to a state-federal clash over border security, had not received an invitation as of Sunday. The mayor from McAllen said he was invited, but could not attend because of a prior commitment.
A White House spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment on other mayors who were invited to the announcement.
The White House is telling lawmakers that Biden is preparing to sign off on an executive order that would shut down asylum requests to the U.S.-Mexico border once the number of daily encounters hits 2,500 between ports of entry, with the border reopening once that number declines to 1,500, according to several people familiar with the discussions.
Immigration remains a concern for voters ahead of the November elections, with Republicans eager to punish Biden electorally over the issue. Democrats have responded that Republicans, at the behest of Donald Trump, killed a bipartisan border deal in Congress that would have led to the toughest legislative restrictions on asylum in years.
*The Associated Press contributed to this report.