This is President Joe Biden’s first visit to the US southern border since he took office nearly two years ago. El Paso is currently the largest corridor for irregular crossings
Text: Yeny Garcia / Jorge Agobian
President Joe Biden arrived in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday for his first trip to the US-Mexico border since taking office nearly two years ago. His intention is to assess the migration crisis in a city overwhelmed by the arrival of irregular migrants seeking to live in the US.
Biden was greeted Sunday afternoon by Gov. Greg Abbott, who told reporters that he delivered a letter to the president in which he “provided five solutions that already exist under current United States law,” including the illegal detention of millions. of people in the United States. Abbott told reporters, “We’re so glad the president is here.”
Shortly thereafter, Biden spoke with US Customs and Border Protection police officers at the Bridge of the Americas border crossing in El Paso. Border officials apprehended a record 2.2 million migrants at the border with Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year that ended in September. The figure includes people who attempted to cross multiple times.
Biden, accompanied by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, also meets this Sunday at the border with legislators from Congress, local officials and community leaders.
Mayorkas said Sunday that two of the key elements that led to increased numbers of migrants arriving in the United States — international crises and legislative deadlock — were outside the president’s control.
“We’re dealing with a broken system,” Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Texas.
*Read also: The US increases quotas for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela
The White House said Biden would 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 freezing temperatures and thousands of apprehensions every day.
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News on Sunday that his party could help Democrats, but only if Biden embraced the enforcement policies of former President Donald Trump. Those policies included separating children from their immigrant parents as part of a “zero tolerance” approach to deter illegal immigration.
“They have now allowed a situation where, frankly, we don’t have a border anymore,” Jordan said.
Biden’s visit comes days after the announcement about new plans to block Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan immigrants at the US-Mexico border, expanding the nationalities of those who can be expelled back to Mexico, and is not expected may your visit to El Paso, Texas produce a new policy.
The new US plan includes a monthly quota of 30,000 humanitarian permits for nationals of those three countries plus Venezuela. Beneficiaries will be able to enter the US and work legally for up to two years if they apply from their home countries, pass a background check, and prove they have a financial sponsor in the US.
The White House has said that the measure seeks safe and legal emigration, and to keep migrants safe from human smugglers.
Shortly before landing in Texas, Biden wrote on his Twitter account: “Our border communities represent the best of our nation’s bounty and we will garner them more support as we expand legal avenues for orderly immigration and limit illegal immigration.”
*Read also: US congressmen ask Biden to extend the immediate border expulsion
Migrants in El Paso “waiting for a solution” from Biden
Although Biden’s visit was not expected to result in any new policies, but rather to show that he is taking the issue seriously and to strengthen relations with Border Patrol agents, some migrants seemed excited.
In the surroundings of the Sacred Heart Church, hundreds of migrants who are waiting in a “migration limbo” remain on the lookout “in case the president appears here to see how we are living on the streets waiting for a solution,” he said. to the Voice of America, Luis Rodríguez.
The temple has become one of the last refuges for irregular migrants and in the afternoon it was abuzz with a crowd of activists and human rights defenders offering food and help in makeshift tents.
The sisters Jaqueline and Geraldine Guerrero, aged 17 and 15, came to the Sacred Heart to send a message to President Biden.
Sisters Jaqueline and Geraldine Guerrero hold a sign welcoming President Joe Biden to El Paso and asking him for help for Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, in El Paso, Texas on January 8, 2023.
“We don’t like to see migrants as they are, getting cold in the streets,” they told VOA while holding a sign welcoming the president while asking him to help Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans.
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