President Joe Biden was confronted at the airport in El Paso on Sunday by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who demanded in a hand-delivered letter that Biden act immediately to stop unauthorized immigration including by building more walls on the border.
(Bloomberg) —
President Joe Biden was confronted at the airport in El Paso on Sunday by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who demanded in a hand-delivered letter that Biden act immediately to stop unauthorized immigration including by building more walls on the border.
Abbott told reporters that in his letter to Biden, he described “the chaos that his refusal to enforce the border laws” has caused in Texas and suggested five possible solutions, including increasing deportations and constructing more walls.
“He needs to step up and take swift action,” the governor said. The president, he said, responded that “he wanted to work with us on this.”
Reporters who traveled with Biden and who spoke with Abbott after the two men met were unable to hear anything they said to each other as the president stepped off Air Force One. Biden didn’t speak to the press before leaving the airport.
Abbott, a Republican, has become one of the Democratic president’s fiercest critics on immigration as border crossings have spiked. Over the last year, he has repeatedly bused migrants from Texas to Democratic-run cities to protest what he calls federal inaction on border security. The White House has lambasted the move as a stunt that exploits vulnerable people.
Abbott also criticized Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, accusing his government of busing migrants from the country’s south to the US border. The Texas governor called the practice “reprehensible” and said “AMLO must answer” for it.
“Mexico must be a partner with Texas on the immigration process,” he said.
Biden will meet with AMLO and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday and Tuesday in Mexico City.
During a few hours on the ground in El Paso on Sunday, Biden plans to see first-hand conditions at a port of entry and a facility housing migrants encountered by US authorities. The president faces calls from Democrats as well as Republicans to more quickly process cases, resettle lawful claimants and deport people deemed ineligible.
At the Bridge of the Americas, one of the busiest ports of entry in the US, Biden met with Customs and Border Patrol agents and leaders and local officials. At one point, agents demonstrated how they inspect vehicles with a trained dog.
Since Biden entered the White House, the US has seen a large increase in migration from Latin America. The president attributes the surge to a range of factors, including people fleeing dictatorial and socialist regimes to seek a better life in the US. But his critics say the crisis is fueled by Biden’s rejection of hard-line measures to stop crossings.
Congress has balked at immigration reform or major new funding, leaving Biden few options. The US continues to employ pandemic-era border controls known as Title 42 to quickly expel migrants. The president acknowledged there is no easy fix on Thursday as he announced new measures to address the border situation.
“Our problems at the border didn’t arise overnight and they’re not going to be solved overnight. It’s a difficult problem,” Biden said. But he also lashed out at Republicans for what he called “inflammatory” talk about migration and urged them to work across the aisle to approve immigration legislation and additional border-security funds.
“Immigration reform used to be a bipartisan issue. We can make it that way again. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s economically a smart thing to do,” Biden said. “It’s so easy to demagogue this issue.”
Congress is preparing to probe the situation at the border, following the election of Republican Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker early Saturday. Some Republicans have threatened to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over what they say is a lack of border control.
Mayorkas dismissed the threat of impeachment in remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, saying his department has “work that we need to get done.”
Many Republicans have accused Biden of overlooking the crisis, particularly those representing border states.
“During this entire time, Joe Biden has not called me — he did not call me, nor his staff called and let us know either about his visit or to invite us, until last night,” Abbott said earlier on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “We got a random email to one of my staff members asking if I would be there to meet him on the tarmac.”
A White House official confirmed that Abbott was invited to meet Biden on Saturday.
In his letter to Biden, Abbott demanded that the president begin detaining more migrants and stop paroling them while they away immigration proceedings, allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport more unauthorized immigrants already living in the US, prosecute border crossings between US ports of entry, resume border wall construction in Texas and designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
“You have violated your constitutional obligation to defend the states against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws,” Abbott wrote.
–With assistance from Jenny Leonard, Akayla Gardner and Catarina Saraiva.
(Updates with further Abbott remarks beginning in sixth paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.