Beto O'Rourke blames the Biden administration's 'failures' for worsening the Haitian migrant crisis at the border

Last week, 15,000 migrants, most of them Haitians, arrived in Del Rio, Texas to seek asylum.
Beto O'Rourke wrote an opinion piece blaming Biden's administration for the worsening of the crisis.

He stated that the administration should have seen the problem coming, and that they were too slow to react.

10 Things in Politics: Get the latest news in politics and economics Loading... Click Sign up to receive marketing emails and other offers from Insider.

Beto O'Rourke published an opinion piece Friday stating that what happened at the Haitian border with migrants was "years in making" but that the Biden administration's failures made the situation worse.

After arriving in Texas in search for asylum, approximately 15,000 Haitian migrants found shelter under a bridge in Del Rio. Due to the large number of migrants, conditions were poor in the camp and border patrol encountered many problems.

Both Republicans and Democrats were critical of the situation. Homeland Security claimed that the encampment was cleared on Friday after it arranged for deportation flights to Haiti.

"What happened in Del Rio was wrong. It didn't have the to happen," O'Rourke who was a former representative of El Paso, Texas in the US House of Representatives began in an op-ed published in El Paso Matters.

He pointed out that the majority of migrants were from South America and had been forced to flee Haiti's 2010 earthquake. For a variety reasons, the displaced Haitians sought asylum in America.

O'Rourke claimed that the US should have known it was coming: "We have diplomatic mission in each of these nations and an unrivaled global network intelligence network."

He also criticised the White House's slow response to migrants arriving, calling it "leaving the people in Del Rio and Border Patrol to their own devices."

He lashed out at the Trump administration's use Title 42, a Trump-era strategy, to "immediately, and without due process," repatriate Haitians to the country they fled a decade earlier, one whose streets are now ruled over by gangs of criminals.

Some criticisms directed at President Joe Biden have been addressed by Biden, who said he accepted "responsibility for the actions border patrol agents who confronted migrants on horseback" and that they "will pay."

ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics), September 24, 2021

O'Rourke also criticized the actions of Republican politicians, saying: "We need leadership at this time." These are not the photo ops that our governor and GOP Congressmen favor, which is a way for them to show their strength in front of people who are suffering.

He concluded by stating that the US should "dispense" with Trump's cynical policies and adopt current U.S. laws to protect asylum seekers and hold those who treat them as less humane.

He called for a complete overhaul of the US immigration policy and said it should be driven primarily by people from border communities.

O'Rourke is believed to be thinking about a run for Texas governor in 2022. He has previously ran for the US Senate as a Democrat.