Migrants pile up at border wall between US and Mexico, waiting for a chance to cross over Image Courtesy AP
Ever since Joe Biden took office in 2021, he has allowed his administration to fail spectacularly in the aspect of border regulation. You can blame ineptitude, disinterest and ignorance for such conduct. But political compulsion tops the list of reasons. For many Democrat leaders, unchecked illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border is a desire, not a problem.
But as President, Joe Biden has no choice but to respect the law and listen to the calls of the border states. The only problem is that he is two years too late. The Biden administration has finally shifted its focus towards the chaos at ensuing the US-Mexico border, but only after ignoring the issue for the last two years. Before his visit to Mexico City for an international summit, President Joe Biden stopped at El Paso, Texas which has been witnessing an unprecedented migrant crisis.
This visit is not without controversy. No one, on either side of the political aisle is happy with the President who is caught in a tight spot when it comes to the border issue. In fact, this is his first border visit since he took office two years ago.
Texas Governor Greg Abbot slammed the President in a letter saying, “Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20bn too little and two years too late.”
He also noted that the president’s tour avoids areas where mass illegal immigration occurs “and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.”
Accused of having an open-border policy, the Biden administration has come up with a slew of measures to cull illegal immigration this month. These involve the increased use of expedited removal where migrants are turned back without getting a court hearing. This expands on a previous Trump-era practice. The measure will target Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans for expulsion into Mexico. A similar move was aimed at Venezuelans in October which allegedly led to a fall in the number of people arriving from Venezuela.
Now here are some numbers that reflect the situation at the US-Mexico border. ?The numbers are screaming humanitarian crisis like nothing else. U.S. Border Patrol encountered more than 2.2 million illegal migrants at the U.S.-Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year, the most ever recorded. This was up from 1.7 million in 2021. And these are just numbers of encounters that border security reported.
The reality is that border security personnel are far outnumbered and under-resourced to tackle the crisis and human traffickers and drug cartels are enjoying an easy run across the border into the US.
The Biden administration had earlier tried to remove Title 42, a measure to stop migrants in the name of pandemic regulations. It also tried to pause Trump-era’s “Remain in Mexico” program which sends certain non-Mexican citizens who entered the US back to Mexico – instead of detaining them or releasing them into the United States – while their immigration proceedings played out.
The Biden administration has been facing tremendous backlash for the last two years for brazenly ignoring the crisis. Soon after taking office, he appointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the border Czar to lead the response to the border crisis. But Harris’ approach was an unfruitful one. She has been accused of dodging the immediate issue of open borders with her unsuccessful attempt to “address the root causes” in Central American countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Republican governors of border states Florida and Texas have been at the forefront of a fiery attack on the Democrats that the Biden administration has so far stood defenceless against. In fact, Democrat leaders, especially those in non-border states believe that acting against migration is politically disincentivising and inconvenient. That is why the Biden administration has comfortably ignored the border for as long as it could, and why the new measures announced are being described as “hardline” by Democrat supporters.
It appears now, that as an unfinished agenda, President Biden is making few appearances to show that he cares and will work for the people affected by the migrant crisis in bordering states. A piecemeal approach. How far his policy shift will actually translate into real change on the ground, remains to be seen.
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