President Biden intends to visit US-Mexico border

Hebron, The Gulf Observer: President Joe Biden intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border his first trip there since taking office in connection with his meeting next week in Mexico City with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

“That’s my intention, we’re working out the details now,” Biden told reporters Wednesday during a trip to Kentucky.

Biden said upon his return to the White House that he hoped to see “what’s going on” at the border and also planned to make remarks about border security on Thursday.

There have been large increases in the number of migrants at the border even as a U.S. public health law remains in place that allows American authorities to turn away many people seeking asylum in the United States. Republican leaders have criticized the president for policies that they say are ineffective on border security and they have questioned why he has not made a trip there yet.

The increased focus from Biden on the border also comes as the president prepares for a 2024 reelection bid. His sole declared potential rival, Donald Trump, rose to the top of the GOP ranks by animating the party’s base voters with his hardline stances on immigration.

But there was some praise Wednesday after the news.

Biden has yet to lay out any systemic changes to manage an expected increase of migrants should the health restrictions end. And the president is limited in what he can do without immigration law changes. But in Congress, a bipartisan immigration bill was buried shortly before Republicans assumed control of the House.

Biden made his comment about the upcoming border visit during a stop in Kentucky at a highway bridge that is to receive federal dollars under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

Trump visited the U.S. side of the border as president several times, including one trip to McAllen, Texas, where he claimed Mexico would pay for the border wall.

American taxpayers ended up covering the costs. Mexican leaders had flatly rejected the idea when Trump pressed them early on. “NO,” Enrique Peña Nieto, then Mexico’s president, tweeted in May 2018. “Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever. Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).”