Washington — President Biden is headed to the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, his first trip there as president after two years of hounding by Republicans who have pounded him as soft on border security while the number of migrants crossing rises.
Mr. Biden is scheduled to spend a few hours in El Paso, Texas, the largest conduit for illegal crossings due in large part to Nicaraguans fleeing tyranny, crime, and poverty. They are among migrants from four nations who are now subject to swift removal under new restrictions imposed by the Biden administration in the past week.
The president is set to meet with border officials to discuss migration as well as the rising trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which are contributing to the soaring number of overdose deaths in the United States.
Mr. Biden will visit the El Paso County Migrant Services Center and meet with charitable and religious organizations that assist newly arrived migrants in the United States. It is not clear whether Mr. Biden will talk to any migrants.
“The president’s very much looking forward to seeing for himself firsthand what the border security situation looks like,” said John Kirby, White House national security spokesperson. “This is something that he wanted to see for himself.”
Mr. Biden’s remarks on border security and his travel to the border are intended in part to reduce political noise and mitigate the impact of planned House Republican inquiries into immigration. But any durable solution will require action by the highly divided Congress, where previous efforts to approve broad changes have failed in recent years.
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas gave tepid appreciation for Mr. Biden’s plan to visit the border, and even that was significant in the current political climate.
Cornyn stated, “He must take the time to learn from some of the experts I rely on the most, including local officials and law enforcement, landowners, nonprofits, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s officers and agents, and folks who make their livelihoods in border communities on the front lines of his crisis,”
On January 7, 2023, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Texas National Guard soldiers maintain watch at the U.S.-Mexico border.
From El Paso, Mr. Biden will continue south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is one of the agenda items.
Ahead of the president’s visit to El Paso, where migrants congregate at bus stops and parks before continuing their journey, border patrol officials have increased security.
Ruben Garcia of the Annunciation House aid organization in El Paso stated, “I think they’re trying to send a message that they’re going to more consistently check people’s documented status, and if you have not been processed they are going to pick you up,”
Migrants and asylum-seekers escaping violence and persecution have discovered that safeguards in the United States are primarily available to those with money or the ability to find a financial guarantor.
Jose Natera, a Venezuelan migrant in El Paso who aspires to seek asylum in Canada, stated that he has no chance of getting a U.S. sponsor and is hesitant to seek asylum in the U.S. due to his fear of being deported to Mexico.
He stated that Mexico is “is a terrible country where there is crime, corruption, cartels and even the police persecute you,” “They warn that people who intend to enter illegally will not have a chance, but I don’t have a sponsor…. I traveled to this nation for employment. I did not come to play here.”
During Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, the number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border increased substantially. During the year that concluded on September 30, there were almost 2.38 million stops, the first time the number surpassed 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, afraid to embrace hard-line tactics that might mimic those of the Trump administration.
The policy adjustments announced this past week are Mr. Biden’s boldest attempt yet to curb illegal border crossings and would turn away tens of thousands of migrants coming at the border. In addition, 30,000 migrants every month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela will be permitted to enter the United States lawfully if they travel by plane, have a sponsor, and pass background checks.
The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S.
Some applauded the adjustments, particularly leaders in cities where migrants have amassed. However, Mr. Biden was criticized by immigrant advocacy groups who accused him of emulating the prior president’s policies.
“I do take issue with comparing us to Donald Trump,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, pointing to some of his most reviled practices, like the removal of migrant children from their parents.
She stated, “This is not that president,”
Mr. Biden has not spent much time near the U.S.-Mexico border despite his extensive worldwide travel throughout his fifty years in public service.
The only visit the White House could cite to was his drive along the border during his 2008 presidential campaign. In 2021, he dispatched Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso, but she was condemned for mostly avoiding the action, as El Paso was not the hub of border crossings at the time.
President Barack Obama visited El Paso in 2011 to observe border procedures and the Paso Del Norte international bridge, but he was later criticized for not returning as tens of thousands of unaccompanied youngsters entered the United States from Mexico.
Trump, who made restricting immigration his defining issue, made multiple trips to the border. During one visit, he squeezed into a small border post to examine cash and illicit substances seized by officials. During a visit to McAllen, Texas, at the epicenter of a rising issue, he asserted one of his most frequently repeated assertions, namely that Mexico will pay for the construction of a border wall.
After Mexican politicians vehemently rejected the proposal, American taxpayers ultimately footed the tab.
In May 2018, Enrique Pea Nieto, then-president of Mexico, tweeted “NO,” Never will Mexico pay for a wall. Never now, never again Sincerely, Mexico (everyone)
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