House Minority Leader McCarthy leads Republican lawmakers on a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and delivers remarks. (March 15, 2021)
Thousands of unaccompanied minors are crossing the Mexican border into the United States, quickly reigniting a heated debate on immigration in Washington. Republicans and Democrats are calling it a crisis, but the two sides are at odds over whose fault it is.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led a group of Republican lawmakers to the border Monday (March 15) to denounce Democratic President Joe Biden‘s policies. McCarthy said Biden has opened the door to unchecked illegal immigration.
“The security of our country and our borders is the primary responsibility of our president,” McCarthy told reporters at the border in El Paso, Texas. “This did not have to happen. This crisis was created by the presidential policies of this new administration. There’s no other way to call it but a Biden border crisis.”
Biden took office in January to stop the construction of a border wall championed by former President Donald Trump and to promote what he called a more humane immigration policy.
The Biden Administration did not directly refer to the influx as a crisis, preferring the term “challenge. In February alone, the influx included nearly 30,000 unaccompanied minors.
But Biden and his aides have been anxious to stop thousands of poor Guatemalan, Honduran and Salvadoran migrants from making the dangerous journey through Mexico to the United States. These migrants believe they can lead safer, more prosperous lives in the United States.
Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will help process large numbers of unaccompanied minors over the next 90 days.
An unaccompanied minor who crossed the border into the United States seeking asylum. (March 9, 2021)
In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “Our goal is to ensure that unaccompanied children are transferred to the Department of health and Human Services as quickly as possible and in accordance with the requirements of the law and the best interests of these children.”
The children are currently stranded in temporary facilities at the border, which are nearly 94 percent full. They can only be sent later to relatives already living in the United States or to families who are approved and willing to care for or adopt them.
On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “The Biden administration is trying to fix the dysfunctional system that the Trump Administration left them. The Biden administration will have a system that is based on doing the best job possible and understanding that this is a humane crisis.”
Trump also spoke out on his thoughts on immigration at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. He contended that Biden “wants to bring everything down.
“When I left office just six weeks ago, we built the most secure border in the history of the United States,” Trump claimed. .
Trump contends, “It took the new administration just a few short weeks to turn this unprecedented achievement into a self-inflicted humanitarian and national security disaster by recklessly removing our borders, security measures, controls, and all the things that we put in place.”
In early March, McCarthy requested a meeting with Biden to discuss border immigration. He said he felt it was “important to express great concern about the way your administration has handled this crisis, but also that we can work together to resolve it.”
McCarthy said he has not heard back from President Biden.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sachs dismissed Republicans’ claims that the new administration has adopted an “open borders policy.
“That’s absolutely not true,” she said last week. “The border is not open.”
White House Southern Border Coordinator Roberta Jacobson acknowledged last week that the factor fueling the surge in immigration was likely the idea that the U.S. border would be easier to access under Biden.
Jacobson, the National Security Council’s southern border coordinator, speaks at a White House press conference. (March 10, 2021)
“I certainly think that the idea that a more humane policy would be implemented has the potential to drive people to make those kinds of decisions,” she told reporters. “But perhaps more importantly, it absolutely drives smugglers to send out false messages that it’s now possible to do so.”
Lawmakers in Washington have been deadlocked on immigration policy for years. In addition to dealing with the current border woes, House Democrats this week tried to advance two pieces of legislation on immigration.
One would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. at an early age and subsequently attend school and work in the country.
The House is also considering a bill that would seek to allow immigrant workers in the U.S. agricultural sector to obtain temporary residency status in the U.S., with the option of eventually becoming permanent residents.
Democrats strongly support both bills and also passed both in 2019. However, even if they pass both bills in the House again, the bills’ prospects in the Senate are uncertain at best. Democrats are evenly split with Republicans in the Senate.
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