WASHINGTON — Two years after taking office, President Joe Biden will make his first U.S.-Mexico border visit on Sunday with a stop in El Paso, where a massive influx of migrants has overwhelmed local shelters.
Republicans have long clamored for such a visit, pressing for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to see firsthand the crisis, which they blame on weak enforcement and misguided policies.
“The president will visit El Paso, Texas, on Sunday to address border enforcement operations and meet with local officials who have been important partners in managing historic number of migrants fleeing political oppression and gang violence in Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday morning.
While there, he will call on Congress to provide record resources for the Department of Homeland Security and support an overhaul of immigration and border security policies.
A growing number of Republicans have demanded the resignation or impeachment of Biden’s homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a former chairman of the House homeland security committee, slammed Biden for waiting so long to visit the border as president, “after 5 million people have crossed illegally, and 100,000 people died because of fentanyl coming primarily from China and Mexico.”
He accused Biden of trying to capitalize on the “chaos” in Congress — trying to project leadership as Republicans squabble over the election of a new speaker.
But, McCaul said, speaking on Fox News, “He hasn’t done anything to secure the border. ... You have to question the timing of this.”
Biden will stop in Texas on his way to a two-day summit in Mexico City with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
When Biden was vice president, President Barack Obama also made his first visit to the border in El Paso. That was in May 2011, four months later in his presidency. Obama mocked GOP demands for ever more border security before they would entertain the idea of immigration reform.
“Maybe they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat. They’ll never be satisfied,” he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic suppressed labor demand, and President Donald Trump’s hard-line policies and rhetoric further deterred migration, setting conditions for a boomerang effect that hit once Biden took office.
Since then, the border has seen massive increases in migrants even as a public health law, known as Title 42, remains in place that allows American authorities to turn away many people who are seeking asylum.
Known as the “Ellis Island of the Southwest,” El Paso has spent several weeks responding to a massive influx of migrants, many of whom anticipated the lifting of Title 42, which allowed border agents to expel migrants quickly without giving them a chance to apply for asylum.
Instead, the Supreme Court in late December preserved the major Trump-era policy, which was scheduled to expire under a judge’s order on Dec. 21. The case will be argued in February. A stay imposed by Chief Justice John Roberts will remain in place until the justices make a decision.
The limits were put in place under Trump at the beginning of the pandemic. Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the U.S. 2.5 million times and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Immigration advocates sued to end the policy. They argued it goes against U.S. and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution. They’ve also argued that the policy is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve.
In El Paso, some migrants said they felt duped. Expecting the end of Title 42, they had crossed the Rio Grande without being processed by immigration authorities. Now they are in limbo and face expulsion.
“Truth is, I don’t know what to do,” Gabriel Castillo, a Venezuelan man who has been sleeping in the streets, told The Dallas Morning News recently. “Many of my friends have tried getting on buses and getting out of El Paso. But now they are back in Mexico. We’re just waiting for some kind of solution.”
Even with Title 42 in place, tens of thousands of migrants have crossed the border into El Paso since late August, according to data from Customs and Border Protection. Many of them were not eligible for expulsion because their home countries and Mexico would not accept them.
In the week before Christmas, the Department of Homeland Security said it moved nearly 10,000 people through Title 42 or deportations or lateral transit to other border communities in a process they call “decompression.”
The El Paso convention center provided shelter for nearly 500 people, Mario D’Agostino, deputy city manager, said in a news conference. Though the number of arrivals appears to be falling, officials are seeing a growing number of migrants who don’t have proper documents.
“If they continue to get in without being detected, we’re going to continue having this population grow within our community, and so that is concerning,” he said.
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