(Originally published in CNS News.)
President Joe Biden visited the southern U.S. border and saw just what he expected… what officials made sure he saw. A secure border and no surge of migrants trying to enter the country.
For his first visit to the southern border in 15 years, the president toured a port of entry along the border. He didn’t speak with migrants looking to enter the U.S. or even look at their crowded camps on the other side of the border.
He watched border agents in El Paso, Texas, demonstrate how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband.
Of course, what he saw in El Paso wasn’t what people usually see.
“El Paso being cleaned up as if nothing unusual ever happened there. Just in time for Biden’s ‘visit to the border,’” tweeted the National Border Patrol Council. “We suggest just landing in Des Moines, Iowa and telling him it’s El Paso. He’ll never know the difference.”
In anticipation of the president’s visit to see what was happening on the border, officials made sure he didn’t see anything that would leave a bad impression of the city or the Biden Administration’s policies. Law enforcement arrested migrants on the streets of the city and Border Patrol agents sent hundreds of migrants back to Mexico.
“Anytime some brass from DC comes, the tents get emptied, everyone gets released/processed expeditiously to give the illusion that it’s under control,” one agent said.
And there is nothing wrong with this. It is the type of thing they should be doing, not only in El Paso, but other communities along the border.
If this was something officials did regularly, there might not be a problem along the southern border.
However, rather than securing our border, Biden’s policies are encouraging more migrants. Las month, he expanded the “humanitarian parole program for Venezuelan nationals to include Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. It will permit 30,000 individuals a month from all four countries to be paroled into the U.S. for two years,” according to Newmax.
Meanwhile, just south of the United States, tens of thousands of migrants are looking for a way to cross the border. Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 2.3 million migrants at the southern border in fiscal year 2022. This was a record number.
Biden’s last visit to the border was in 2008, according to former White House press secretary Jen Psaki. She said in 2021 during a press conference, “There’s been reporting that he did drive through the border when he was on the campaign trail in 2008.” So, a short visit 14 years ago is supposed to make him well aware of what is happening today.
If that was true, there wouldn’t be a problem with border security in the south. He was in office for eight years as Vice President, and the crisis only worsened.
Not everyone was willing to paint a rosy picture for the president. When Biden arrived in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott greeted him with a letter that said the “chaos” at the border was the “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws.
Although he can now say he visited the border, the president won’t make any changes to protect it, having seen a sanitized version of what is going on. This will just open him up to more criticism because when he says things are fine when they aren’t, he will continue to fail this country and its citizens.
