With El Paso shelters overrun by a surge in migrants and the city under a state of emergency, President Joe Biden announced Thursday his first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office nearly two years ago.
The White House said Biden will travel to El Paso and "will assess border enforcement operations and meet with local elected officials and community leaders who have been important partners in managing the historical number of migrants fleeing political oppression and gang violence in Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba."
He announced he’ll expand efforts to quickly expel migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who come to the U.S. illegally as he warned migrants to not just show up.
Still, the President says the U.S. will allow up to 30,000 people from those countries to come to the U.S. each month as long as they apply from their home countries, have a sponsor in the U.S. and also pass a security screening.
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Those attempting to claim asylum at the U.S. border will be quickly returned to their home countries, the White House says.
"We anticipate this action is going to substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process,” said Biden.
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Biden has faced fierce criticism over his handling of the border crisis where there's been a record number of illegal border crossings.
Senator John Cornyn released the statement which read, in part, "While I’m glad President Biden will finally come to the border, his visit can't be a check-the-box photo-op.”
“I can tell that what I've seen, I don't ever want to see again,” said Sandragrace Martinez, a humanitarian from San Antonio whose been in El Paso for more than three weeks. She described the situation as a "nightmare."
“To President Biden I say, please, see the situation, fix the situation. Come up with something that's going to be feasible to everybody, the United States and to all the other countries,” said Hilda Duarte, the president of LUCAC's Dallas council.
The President will travel to Mexico next week to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
