Border Patrol agents apprehend a group of migrants near downtown El Paso, Texas following the congressional border delegation visit. — AFP photo
BROWNSVILLE, United States: President Joe Biden faced mounting pressure Monday from Republicans over his handling of a surge in migrants — including thousands of unaccompanied children — arriving at the US-Mexican border.
While successive administrations have dealt with seasonal spikes in migration, Biden’s critics claim he has driven the latest uptick by taking a softer stance on the flashpoint issue than his predecessor Donald Trump.
On January 20, his first day in office, Biden scrapped several of Trump’s contentious immigration policies, including halting new construction of a border wall and proposing legislation to create a citizenship pathway for the nearly 11 million people living illegally in the US.
Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy of California, who leads his party in the House of Representatives, described Biden’s policies as having created “more than a crisis.”
“You can continue to deny it but the only way to solve it is to first admit what he has done, and if he will not reverse action, it takes Congressional action to do it,” McCarthy told a press conference on the border in the Texas town of El Paso.
Republican congressman Chuck Fleischmann said Biden’s administration had “created an environment” that caused an increase in migration. Other Republican lawmakers said human traffickers were profiting from Biden’s policies.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Biden had inherited “a dismantled and unworkable system” from Trump.
“Like any other problem, we’re going to do everything we can to solve it,” she said. — AFP
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