The humanitarian situation in the border city of El Paso is so bad and so ugly that local authorities are bulldozing several illegal immigrant encampments to get them out of sight before Joe Biden’s visit on Sunday.
El Paso had been turned into one gigantic homeless shelter after tens of thousands of illegal aliens crossed the border in December anticipating the end of the immigration restriction known as Title 42. But the Supreme Court granted a reprieve to Texas and other border states who had sued to keep the restrictions in place. As a result, streets, sidewalks, and parking lots in El Paso have been taken over by illegal aliens.
Now, Joe Biden has imposed a policy — probably to be challenged in court — that allows some illegal immigrants entry into the U.S. but forces most of the rest to wait. It’s a policy that has satisfied no one, especially groups that are agitating for open borders. About 300 of the illegals obediently marched through the streets of downtown El Paso demanding the government open the border.
The hundreds of people camped out on individual blocks surrounding the Greyhound Bus Station and Sacred Heart Church have been moved out of eyesight by local El Paso police officers and federal Border Patrol agents, according to four law enforcement officials who spoke with the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
“The [community residents] that experienced it on a daily basis were fed up and they made it known,” a senior federal agent wrote in a text message. “Crime was getting bad and many residents were complaining. Some migrants even took over private parking lots and were charging for people to use them for parking.”
The undertaking began last week after authorities discovered several groups of people on the streets were pretending to have been released by Border Patrol but had never been arrested and were considered unlawfully present.
As for Biden’s drop-by in El Paso on his way to Mexico City, the Washington Examiner refers to the sojourn as “Biden’s Potemkin Trip to the Southern Border.”
Biden will learn nothing from his trip because he doesn’t want to learn anything. He already announced his new immigration policy Thursday, days before his trip. He is obviously going in hope of grabbing the initiative on a policy area he has botched spectacularly as he rolls out his as-yet undeclared reelection campaign
In his speech announcing an expanded parole program that grants work visas to 360,000 people a year, Biden mocked the idea that migrants were coming to the United States just to make more money.
“It’s not like people are sitting around a table somewhere in Central America and saying, ‘I got a great idea. Let’s sell everything we have. Let’s give it to a coyote, a smuggler. They’ll take us on a harrowing journey for thousands of miles to get to the United States, then we’re going to illegally cross the border.’”
Yes, Mr. President. And your point is…?
Of course, that’s why these millions of people want to come to the United States. “To find a better life” easily translates to “more money for me and my family.” And for many thousands of illegals desperate to cross the border, it’s a question of getting more government goodies.
More opportunities to succeed? Yes. A better chance to live a good life for my children? Absolutely. But with 70% of illegal border crossers being unmarried single adults, how much of this “I’m doing it for my kids” rhetoric should we believe?
Biden will be in El Paso just long enough to get two or three good visuals for the media while completely ignoring the problems his administration has caused.
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