EL PASO, Texas — President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first journey to the area after two years in workplace, a go to shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans blame him for report numbers of migrants crossing into the nation.
At his first cease, the president noticed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search autos for medication, cash and different contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty avenue with deserted buildings and walked alongside a metallic border fence that separated the U.S. metropolis from Ciudad Juarez.
His final cease was the El Paso County Migrant Services Center — however there have been no migrants in sight. As he discovered concerning the providers supplied there, he requested an support employee, “If I could wave the wand, what should I do?”
Biden’s practically four-hour go to to El Paso was extremely managed. He encountered no migrants besides when his motorcade drove alongside the border and a couple of dozen lined up on the Ciudad Juárez aspect. His go to didn’t embrace time at a Border Patrol station, the place migrants who cross illegally are arrested and held earlier than their launch.
The go to appeared designed to showcase a easy operation to course of authorized migrants, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely deal with those that have entered illegally, making a counter-narrative to Republicans’ claims of a disaster scenario equal to an open border.
But his go to was doubtless do little to quell critics from each side, together with immigrant advocates who accuse him of creating merciless insurance policies not not like these of his hard-line predecessor, Donald Trump.
In an indication of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter as quickly as he touched down within the state that mentioned the “chaos” on the border was a “direct result” of the president’s failure to implement federal legal guidelines. Biden later took the letter out of his jacket pocket throughout his tour, telling reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dismissed Biden’s go to as a “photo op,” saying on Twitter that the Republican majority would maintain the administration “accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.”
El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego welcomed Biden’s go to, however mentioned a present lull in arrivals prevented the president from seeing how giant the group of newcomers has been.
“He didn’t get to see the real difficulties,” mentioned Samaniego, who was within the native delegation that greeted Biden. “It was good that he was here. It’s a first step. But we still need to do more and have more time with him.”
Elsewhere in El Paso the place Biden didn’t go to, a whole bunch of migrants had been gathered Sunday exterior the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the place they’ve been sleeping open air and receiving three meals a day from religion teams and different humanitarian organizations.
The migrants included a number of pregnant girls, together with Karla Sainz, 26, eight months alongside. She was touring in a small group that included her 2-year-old son, Joshua. Sainz left her three different youngsters again house in Venezuela along with her mom.
“I would ask President Biden to help me with a permission or something so we can work and continue,” she mentioned.
Juan Tovar, 32, certainly one of a number of individuals in her group, recommended he additionally had political causes for leaving his house nation.
“Socialism is the worst,” he mentioned. “In Venezuela, they kill us, they torture us, we can’t talk bad about the government. We are worse off than in Cuba.”
The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically throughout Biden’s first two years in workplace. There had been greater than 2.38 million stops in the course of the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, the primary time the quantity topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take measures that will resemble these of Trump’s administration.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”