President Joe Biden will visit the US-Mexico border on Sunday for the first time since taking office nearly two years ago, tackling one of the most politically charged issues in the country as he prepares for a re-election bid.
Biden on Thursday announced fresh plans to block Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants at the US-Mexico border, expanding the nationalities of migrants who can be expelled back to Mexico, and the visit to El Paso, Texas, isn’t expected to yield any new policy breakthroughs.
Instead, it is meant to demonstrate that the US President is taking the issue seriously, stop nagging questions about when he plans to visit, shore up relations with border patrol, and potentially give him another chance to push Congress to pass new laws to fix a broken system. However, Republicans’ newly assumed control of the House of Representatives essentially blocks prospects for any legislative fixes, leaving Biden with few good options.
“The trip is recognition that this is a serious issue, one with real hardships, but it’s also one that will only get solved with the help of Republicans, said Karen Finney, a Democratic consultant.
Republicans have continually used the border issue as a cudgel against Biden, blaming him for failing to crack down harder. And with a thin Republican majority in the House that gives the party’s hardliners greater clout, there is little hope for compromise.
Biden will meet at the border with local officials and community leaders, and assess border enforcement operations in El Paso, where the Democratic mayor declared a state of emergency last month, citing hundreds of migrants sleeping on the streets in cold temperatures and thousands being apprehended every day.
US border officials apprehended a record 2.2 million migrants at the border with Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year that ended in September.
Biden’s effort to try and crack down on the tide of migrants has drawn criticism from all sides. Human rights activists and some Democrats say the new restrictions are a retreat from Biden’s 2020 campaign promise to restore historical rights to asylum-seekers.