Biden won’t announce immigration executive action during State of the Union: official

President Biden will not announce any executive orders on immigration or border security ahead of or during his State of the Union address Thursday, a White House official told Fox News. 

A White House official said that the administration’s “preference” remained that Congress legislates this issue.

Regarding a CNN report claiming Biden told Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, during a recent White House event that he would announce action on the border at the State of the Union, the White House official told Fox News on Thursday that the report was false and such interaction “never happened.” 

The White House official claimed to be double-checking with people who were in the room, but the administration denied the accuracy of the report. 

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The CNN report stated, “The Democrats told Biden that he needed to show more of the fire that was on display in a closed-door meeting with governors when Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte handed him a letter demanding more action on the southern border. Biden flashed a smile, according to two of the governors standing there.”

“‘State of the Union,’ Biden said, teasingly.”

With the migrant crisis an issue that voters say is a central concern ahead of the November election, Republican lawmakers are inviting guests to Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday evening who place heavy focus on the nation’s broken immigration system. 

Migrant encounters at the southern border reached a record monthly high of 302,000 in December. During fiscal 2023, the U.S. saw 2.4 million migrant encounters at the border, which was also an all-time high. 

Nearly 7.3 million migrants have illegally crossed the southwest border under Biden’s watch, a number greater than the population of 36 individual states, a Fox News analysis found last month. 

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The guests invited to sit in the galleries include Tammy Noble, the mother of a young woman, Kayla Hamilton, who was killed in 2022. The suspect was an MS-13 gang member who had entered the U.S. illegally. Nobles was invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Border patrol agent Brandon Budlong, president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2724, will be the guest of Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the chair of the House Republican Caucus.

Two New York Police Department officers, Ben Kurian and Zunxu Tian, who were attacked by migrants in a January incident near Times Square that drew national attention, will be the guests of Reps. Anthony D’Esposito and Nicole Malliotakis, both New York Republicans, as well as Johnson.

Valeria Delgado, a student at Chapman University in California who has benefited from the U.S. policy created to protect young migrants brought to the U.S. as children, will be the guest of Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo, Joe Schoffstall and the Associated Press contributed to this report.