President Joe Biden He said Wednesday that he intends to visit the United States-Mexico border taking advantage of the fact that he will meet next week in Mexico City with the presidents of that country and Canada.
“That is my intention, we are working out the details now,” Biden told reporters during a trip to Kentucky.
Biden said upon his return to the White House that he looked forward to seeing “what’s going on” at the border and also planned to comment on border security on Thursday.
There have been large increases in the number of migrants at the border even as a US public health law that allows authorities to turn away many asylum seekers remains in place.
Republican leaders have criticized the president for ineffective border security policies and have questioned why he has not made a trip to the border.
Immigration will be one of the main topics of conversation at the summit on Monday and Tuesday, when Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are received by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
At the beginning of his presidency, Biden put the vice president Kamala Harris Leading the White House effort to address immigration issues and working with Central American nations to address their causes. She visited El Paso, Texas, in June 2021 and was criticized for choosing a location too far from the epicenter of border crossings that drain federal resources.
The Supreme Court has upheld the Trump-era restrictions, known as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, after Biden moved to end them and Republicans sued in response. Title 42 was invoked to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but there has always been criticism that then-President Trump used the restrictions as a pretext to seal the border.
The Biden administration has yet to come up with systemic changes to manage an expected surge in immigrants should restrictions end. In Congress, a bipartisan immigration bill was buried shortly before Republicans took control of the House.
