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EL PASO, Jan. 6 (AP) President Joe Biden, on his first visit to the region in two years in office, walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border Sunday and inspected a busy port of entry, this time The visit was overshadowed by worrisome politics over immigration, as Republicans blamed him for record numbers of immigrants entering the country.
At his first stop, the president watched border officers in El Paso demonstrate how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he headed to a dusty street dotted with abandoned buildings, walking along the metal border fence that separates the American city from Ciudad Juárez.
His last stop was the El Paso County Immigrant Services Center — but there were no immigrants in sight. When he learned about the services offered there, he asked an aid worker, “If I could wave a magic wand, what should I do?”
Biden’s nearly four-hour visit to El Paso was highly controlled. He encountered no migrants, except as his convoy drove along the border, where about a dozen people lined up on the Ciudad Juárez side. His visit did not include time at Border Patrol stations, where migrants who cross the border illegally are apprehended and held until released.
The visit, which appeared to be designed to showcase smooth operations for processing legal immigration, clearing smuggled contraband and humanely treating illegal entrants, contradicted Republican claims that the crisis situation amounted to open borders.
But his visit may do little to quell criticism from both sides, including immigration advocates who accuse him of having cutthroat policies that differ from those of his hawkish predecessor, Donald Trump.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, delivered a letter immediately after Biden arrived in the state, saying the “confusion” at the border was a “direct result” of the president. Failure to enforce federal law. Biden later pulled the letter out of his jacket pocket during the visit, telling reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”
Elsewhere in El Paso, hundreds of migrants gathered outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Sunday, where they have been sleeping outdoors and receiving three meals a day from faith groups and other humanitarian organizations.
Among the migrants were several pregnant women, including 26-year-old Karla Sainz, who was eight months pregnant. She was traveling with a small group that included her 2-year-old son Joshua. Sainz left her three other children at home in Venezuela with her mother.
“I’m going to ask President Biden to help me get a permit or something so we can keep working,” she said.
Juan Tovar, 32, one of several in her group, said he also had political reasons for leaving his country.
“Socialism is the worst,” he said. “In Venezuela, they killed us, tortured us, and we can’t speak ill of the government. Our situation is worse than Cuba.”
Noengris Garcia, also eight months pregnant, traveled with her husband, teenage son and puppy from the small Venezuelan state of Portugesa, where she runs a food stand.
“We don’t want money or houses,” said Garcia, 39, “we just want jobs.”
Asked what he learned from seeing the border firsthand and talking to officials working along it, Biden said: “They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them.”
Immigration has been a serious point of conflict for years, exposing both the dysfunction of the U.S. system and the unrest within the immigrants’ home countries that has forced many to flee. Administration officials have sought to push back against Republican criticism, saying Congress should work with them to increase border security funding and reform immigration policy.
El Paso is currently the largest corridor for illegal border crossings, in large part because Nicaraguans flee repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among immigrants from four countries who will now be swiftly deported under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that have drawn sharp criticism from immigration advocates.
Biden’s statements on border security and his visit to the border were partly an attempt to silence political noise and blunt the impact of an upcoming immigration probe promised by House Republicans. But any lasting solution will require action from a deeply divided Congress, which has failed several times in recent years to enact sweeping changes.
Biden traveled south from Texas to Mexico City, where he will gather with the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Monday and Tuesday for a summit of North American leaders. Immigration was one of the items on the agenda.
In El Paso, migrants congregated at bus stops and parks before departing, and Border Patrol agents ramped up security ahead of Biden’s visit.
Immigrants and asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution are increasingly finding that in the United States, protections are available primarily to the wealthy or the savvy, who can find someone to sponsor them financially.
During Biden’s first two years in office, the number of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border increased dramatically. In the year ended Sept. 30, more than 2.38 million parking trips were made, breaking the 2 million mark for the first time. The administration has been working hard to clamp down on the border crossing, reluctant to take steps similar to those of the Trump administration.
The policy change, announced last week, is Biden’s biggest move yet to curb illegal border crossings and will deny tens of thousands of migrants who arrive at the border. Meanwhile, 30,000 immigrants a month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela have the opportunity to come to the United States legally as long as they fly, get a sponsor and pass a background check.
The U.S. will also deny migrants who do not first seek asylum in countries they pass through on their way to the U.S. — a scheduled date and time.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Air Force One that the administration was trying to “incentivize a safe and orderly approach and cut off smuggling organizations,” saying the policies “are not at all ban” and instead seek to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can cause.
The changes have been welcomed by some, especially leaders in cities with high concentrations of immigrants. But Biden has been condemned by immigration advocacy groups who have accused him of taking steps that emulate those of the previous president. Administration officials dispute that characterization.
In all of Biden’s international travel during his 50 years of public service, he has spent little time at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The only visit the White House can point to is when Biden drove across the border during his 2008 presidential campaign. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso in 2021, but she has been criticized for largely bypassing that move because El Paso is not the center of the intersection now.
President Barack Obama traveled to El Paso in 2011 to see border operations and the Paso Del Norte international bridge, but was later left unaccompanied by thousands of minors entering the United States from Mexico have been criticized.
Trump has made ramping up immigration a signature issue, making multiple trips to the border.
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Associated Press writers Andres Leighton in El Paso, Texas; Anita Snow in Phoenix; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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