POLITICO Dispatch: September 22 Bipartisanship? POLITICOs Sabrina Rodriguez explains why Biden's handling of the southern border has been so mad at both sides.
The national Border Patrol union attacked the White House Tuesday in visceral terms. They criticized it for not having a plan to handle the 15,000 migrants who overwhelmed agents. Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, provided text from emails that he claims the union sent to the administration in June warning about an influx in migrants in Del Rio. The union suggested a better way to handle the crowds. According to the union, the management of the Border Patrols Del Rio Sector responded that they are considering other platforms which are more efficient.
Late Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security that oversees U.S. Border Patrol did not respond to Judd. Judd stated that Border Patrol agents are extremely frustrated.
They knew it was coming but they did not take steps to mitigate it so you now have a lot of people sitting under bridges in terrible conditions. Judd stated that these children are just a few years old. It's like it was in a war zone, but in the United States. I am completely, totally shocked.
Judd stated that Border Patrol agents used methods they were trained under the Biden administration to combat the images condemned by the White House on Tuesday. We were outnumbered 200 to 1. We were put in a situation where there was a tendency for violence to occur when large crowds are present. Judd stated that they were expected to manage this situation. We don't strike anyone. The White House mocked us for using the tactic that we were taught.
The White House's long-held fear that immigration is the White House's equivalent of political quicksand has been confirmed by the slew of criticisms and calls to reversal of policy. Left-leaning politicians are urging the president to give asylum to illegal immigrants at the border, and to reverse Trump's expulsion policies. Republicans immediately blamed Biden's failure to secure border security for a spike in asylum seekers.
Biden, during the 2020 campaign, had pledged to have a more humane approach to immigration than his predecessor Donald Trump. However, his record as an officeholder has been mixed. He continues to pursue some of the policies of his predecessor while also pursuing comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate parliamentarian rejected Biden's request to include a path to legal status in his party's social spending plan on Sunday. This further complicated Bidens record.
Gyamfi said that the border has become a tough on crime initiative for this administration. He was referring to the 1996 Biden crime bill. Asylum seekers don't need to be sacrificed lambs in order to make right-leaning Democrats look tougher than moderate Republicans.
Administration officials claim they don't have any other options than to keep the flow of migrants at bay and prevent future migration. To help control the overflow, agencies are moving to add more Border Patrol agents and ICE agents in the Del Rio, Texas area. According to the White House, the administration increased the capacity of outbound flights to Haiti and worked with the DHS to reduce crowding and improve conditions on American soil for migrants.
Haitian migrants cross a dam into the United States to enter Mexico from Mexico on Saturday, September 18, 2021 in Del Rio, Texas. Officials announced Saturday that the U.S. will intensify its efforts to expel Haitian migrants from flights to their Caribbean homeland. They made this announcement as agents arrived at the Texas border town where thousands of Haitians had gathered since crossing the border from Mexico. Eric Gay/AP Photo
The Trump-era Title 42 policy was also preserved by the administration. This is a public health authority that Trump and Biden used to expel most migrants who crossed the border.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D.Texas), stated that his colleagues calling for an end of deportations don't understand the border and the frustration that my communities go through.
Are there any frustrations that I can't get involved in politics with Democratic voters? Cuellar spoke of Texas Democratic voters. He said that the dramatic rise in migration to Texas this year is not unusual for them. We live near the border.
Alejandro Mayorkas from Homeland Security was the focus of it all. He was sent to the border Monday to calm down Border Patrol agents' frustrations and to emphasize that he will not tolerate inhumane conditions at camp.
Mayorkas gave testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Tuesday. He stated that members could expect dramatic results in the next 48-96 hours. Mayorkas will also be speaking with Vice President Kamala Harris regarding horseback images. She described them as terrible.
Harris stated at Tuesday's public event that human beings shouldn't be treated this way and that he was deeply disturbed by it.
Over the past few days, media attention has focused on images of thousands of Haitians moving from the U.S. to Mexico by wading through rivers to purchase food or supplies. Texas' Republican Governor. Greg Abbott lashed out at the policies of the Biden administration and claimed that it was the local authorities who were trying to alleviate the crisis, rather than the White House.
However, Democrats were equally repelled. Many Democrats said they were shocked that a president of their party would fly people in despair to other countries and then send them back home to their homelands.
Sawyer Hackett is the executive director of Julian Castros People First Future PAC. This group helps fund progressive candidates. It is wrong that the Trump-era Title 42 policy was used by the administration to deny them their legal right of asylum. It is immoral and shouldn't be allowed to happen.
Biden was accused by the coalition of civil rights and human rights advocates of violating asylum rights, and failing to adhere to policies he championed when he ran for president and when he took office.
Your Administration has violated refugee laws and asylum rights enacted by Congress in recent weeks and has adopted policies that inflict cruelties on Black, Brown, and Indigenous immigrant communities, according to the letter. We are concerned that the campaign promises to uphold the United States' domestic and international legal obligation of asylum, to end privatized and to disentangle federal immigration enforcement and local law enforcement are being broken.
