Rep. Colin Allred, the Democrat challenging Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in next year’s elections, is siding with Republicans in blasting President Biden for failing to plan for the looming migrant surge, saying border towns are “in danger of being overwhelmed.”
He demanded that the president “rush” new resources to help push back on the rising tide of migrants, including more Border Patrol agents and a rewrite of the heavily abused asylum system.
Mr. Allred said he was glad to see a new deployment of U.S. military personnel and welcomed the administration’s promise to open welcome centers in Latin America, but said those gestures “are a beginning, not a fix” to the border chaos.
“It should never have come to this point,” he said.
The criticism is stinging, coming from a man who just last week thrilled Democrats by announcing he would try to unseat Mr. Cruz in what is likely to be one of 2024’s most heavily-watched Senate races.
But Mr. Allred, who represents a Dallas-area district, is far from alone.
A striking number of Democrats have signaled unease with what they see as a lack of planning and communication from the Biden administration ahead of the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era border-expulsion power that has, for the last two years, kept the crisis from turning into a catastrophe.
Title 42 expires Thursday.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says he has been preparing for the transition for more than a year, but a spate of last-minute announcements — many of them still half-baked — has left critics seething.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, this week chided the administration for lacking an “adequate response” and said “more robust action” was needed.
Texas and Arizona stand to face the brunt of the new surge of migrants that’s already begun, even before the end of Title 42.
The 5,000 migrants a day that the Border Patrol reported catching for much of this year reached nearly 9,000 a day over the weekend, and analysts expect it to go even higher in the coming days.
Homeland Security says it’s opening new detention space, but Mr. Mayorkas acknowledged that some people will have to be caught and released with the hope that they come back later to collect their immigration court summonses.
Even with Title 42 in place, Mr. Mayorkas acknowledged that only 665,000 illegal immigrants have been ousted over the last six months, most of them through Title 42. That works out to just 43% of the incoming flow of unauthorized border crossers.
When Title 42 goes away, many of those who were quickly expelled will have more chances to claim a foothold in the U.S., and the ratio of ousters is likely to drop — even as the total number of people coming rises.
Attempts to shift some of the pain from border communities into the interior of the U.S. has relieved a little bit of the burden but also spread the political consequences. Big-city mayors in Chicago and New York, who just a few months ago were bragging about a welcoming attitude and sometimes their sanctuary status, are now begging for help.
The White House has pushed back on complaints from Democrats, promising better communication while saying blame for the border chaos lies in Congress, where lawmakers haven’t passed major immigration legislation in nearly three decades.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.