LATE TO THE GAME: Biden to visit US-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas, on Sunday
WASHINGTON D.C. – On Thursday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden will finally pay a visit to the Southern border with Mexico on Sunday. This visit will be his first visit to a border community as President.
“The president will visit El Paso, Texas, on Sunday to address border enforcement operations and meet with local officials, collaborative work partners,” a senior White House official said.
Biden will “call on Congress to fully fund our request for record resources… and to fix our broken immigration system.”
After his visit, he will travel to Mexico City on Monday and Tuesday for a North America leaders’ summit.
However, on the same day that the White House announced his trip to El Paso, the administration also opened the door for up to 30,000 migrants a month to be allowed into the United States from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for legal immigration and will institute “new consequences” for those who enter the country illegally.
“These measures will expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration and result in new consequences for those who fail to use those legal pathways,” the White House said in a statement.
The quota of legal migrants will be restricted to those already with a US sponsor, while those attempting to cross the US-Mexico border illegally will be expelled under the controversial Title 42 rule and beefed-up law enforcement presence in coordination with Mexico.
At the same time, the Biden administration wants to tighten restrictions on the border itself by turning away undocumented workers under Title 42, despite the administration’s ongoing legal fight to end Title 42.
Title 42 was implemented under Donald Trump’s administration as a health measure to reduce the flow of people during the Covid pandemic.
The White House also announced that it is “surging additional resources to the border and the region, scaling up its anti-smuggling operations, and expanding coordination and support for border cities and non-governmental organizations. Importantly, the actions announced today are being implemented in close partnership with Mexico and governments across the Western Hemisphere.”
The White House also laid out a “plan” for the eventual lifting of Title 42 and what they hope their new vision for the immigration system will look like. Some of the noted steps they wish to take involve improving pathways to citizenship, expanding immigrant parole programs, and countering misinformation.
