When President Biden visited El Paso in January, his first tour of the border since taking office, it was a tightly controlled stopover that was oddly devoid of migrant interaction.
The reality is far different.
Border Patrol agents struggle to stay on top of a daily influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, and border state communities are burdened with the fallout. Shelters are overwhelmed.
What better time for the Biden administration to open the floodgates?
Title 42, the COVID-era border restriction, is set to expire on May 11. That means border authorities will no longer be able to quickly expel certain migrants. Instead, as CNN reported, authorities will have to return to decades-old protocols at a time of unprecedented mass migration in the Western hemisphere.
Officials are ready – for others to be stretched to their limits.
“We do expect that encounters at our southern border will increase as smugglers are seeking to take advantage of this change and already are hard at work spreading disinformation that the border will be open after that. High encounters will place a strain on our entire system, including our dedicated and heroic workforce and our communities,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday.
“Let me be clear: Our border is not open and will not be open after May 11.”
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were 156,138 CBP encounters in February, followed by 191,899 in March. It’s hard to make a case that our border is closed.
Officials have stressed that the increase of migrants is the result of historic movement around the globe, and that recently launched programs that provide a way for Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans – all of whom have arrived in larger numbers over the last two years – to apply to come to the United States have proved successful.
“This is a hemispheric challenge that demands hemispheric solutions,” Mayorkas said.
Apparently, “just don’t come” didn’t work as well as they thought it would.
The Biden administration announced Thursday that it will set up regional processing centers in Latin America for migrants to apply to come to the U.S. Why is this only happening now? Surely such centers, if they can indeed lift some of the burden, would have been useful before this.
The Department of Homeland Security also notified Congress of its intent to reprogram funds within the department’s budget to support needs to secure the border, Mayorkas said, adding, “This notification of repurposing existing funds is only a fraction of what we will ultimately need.”
Two weeks out, and funding is in the “repurposed budget” stage. Why wasn’t the necessary money secured earlier? The expiration of Title 42 is not a surprise.
Biden administration officials seem to have a different sense of the border crisis than those caught in the thick of it.
According to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, large influxes of immigrants are depleting local law enforcement officials’ resources on the border, leading to communities that do not feel safe.
We shudder to think what their lives will be like after May 11.
