WASHINGTON – The administration of President Joe Biden faces the difficult political and humanitarian challenge of dealing with a sharp increase in migrants arriving at the Mexican border, a problem that threatens to overshadow its ambitious agenda.
Biden’s advisers maintain that Biden inherited an impossible situation following systematic efforts to dismantle immigration rules undertaken by the previous administration of Donald Trump.
MIGRANTS REACH THE BORDER IN LARGE NUMBERS
But as Congress prepares to debate new immigration laws, the images and narratives of people on the border are making headlines, diverting attention from the White House’s efforts to promote the huge financial rescue package. approved to alleviate the economic havoc caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
National Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appeared in four television interviews on Sunday to emphasize the message that the government is working hard to control the situation.
“Our message has been clear: the border is closed,” declared Mayorkas. “We are expelling families, we are expelling adults who arrive alone, and we have made the decision that we will not expel vulnerable young children.”
The Biden administration has refused to call the situation a “crisis,” amid a rhetorical battle in the corridors of Washington over what the current circumstance should be called.
The president had recently said that he had not contemplated going to the border, but this Sunday he said that he will at some point.
Immigration professionals had warned that the number of migrants arriving at the border would dramatically increase after the November elections, when word spread that Trump’s policies, widely viewed as cruel, would be overturned.
In the early days of his tenure, Biden sought to undo some of Trump’s measures, which some migrants interpreted as a green light to travel to the United States.
While the new administration was working on immigration legislation to address long-term issues, it did not have a plan to handle a surge in migrants.
The migrants arrived in Texas after crossing the Rio Grande, in the midst of a wave of migration that worries US authorities.
“We have seen a large number of migrations in the past. We know how to approach it. We have a plan. We are executing our plan and we will achieve it, ”Mayorkas said.
But, he added: “It takes time” and is “especially challenging and difficult now” due to the measures taken by the Trump administration. “So we are rebuilding the system as we address the needs of vulnerable children who have reached our borders.”
The images of “children in cages” that defined the policy of family separations under Trump no longer proliferate under Biden, but the current administration struggles to create the capacity to cope with the increase.
The immigration agents were dispersed in the informal points where informal merchandise is usually trafficked.
Unaccompanied children and teens detained by Customs and Border Protection are now transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services within three days, although some spend longer than that.
Authorities are trying to build capacity to serve some 14,000 migrants who are now in federal custody and face the possibility of many more arriving. Critics say the administration should have been better prepared.
“I haven’t seen a plan,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
Alejandro Mayorkas explains what the Biden government is doing on the border.
“They have created a humanitarian crisis here on this border that you have seen now. And the reason they come is because he says words do matter, and they do. The message is that if you want to come, you can stay ”.
The administration has also come under pressure to give the media access to border facilities. Mayorkas said the government was “working to provide access so that people can see what conditions are like at a Border Patrol station.”
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