President Joe Biden arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, touching down in El Paso, Texas, following policy announcements and calls from Republicans as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued new criticism.
Biden is due to spend a few hours in the Texas city, currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, and is expected to meet with border officials to discuss migration as well as the increased trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which are driving skyrocketing numbers of overdoses in the United States. Footage released on Sunday afternoon showed Biden exiting Air Force One after the plane arrived at the El Paso International Airport.
Biden will visit the El Paso County Migrant Services Center and meet with nonprofits and religious groups that support migrants arriving to the United States. It is not clear whether Biden will talk to any migrants, according to officials.
“The President is very much looking forward to seeing for himself first-hand what the border security situation looks like, particularly in El Paso. He’s very much also interested in getting to talk to Customs and Border Patrol agents on the ground who are actually involved in this mission to get their first-hand perspectives of it,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Jan. 6.
Biden’s announcement on border security and his visit to the border are aimed in part at quelling the political noise and blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years.
‘Photo Op’
But ahead of this visit to El Paso, Abbott, Texas’s Republican governor, accused officials of creating a manufactured image by removing illegal immigrants from camps in downtown El Paso, which sits across the border from Ciudad Juarez, one of the most violent cities in the world.
“El Paso rushes to remove illegal immigrants and migrant camps that are crowding downtown before Biden arrives. Predictable,” Abbott wrote on Twitter Saturday. “Biden does not want America to see the chaos that he has caused on the border. This is just a photo op and a game of pretend.”
El Paso rushes to remove illegal immigrants and migrant camps that are crowding downtown before Biden arrives.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 7, 2023
Predictable.
Biden does not want America to see the chaos that he has caused on the border.
This is just a photo op and a game of pretend.https://t.co/4KJqorJjrP
