Biden team looking for ways to slow surge
Immediate challenge is how to deal with thousands of children
The Biden administration is searching for new ways to stem the surge of migrants at the southern border, dispatching officials to Mexico and Guatemala to seek their governments’ help, sending stronger warnings to would-be migrants not to come, and devising alternative pathways to apply for legal entry without showing up in person.
The strategies, which administration officials outlined Monday, reflect the growing pressure on President Joe Biden and his advisers to slow the increase in illegal crossings that has accelerated since he took office. Biden is navigating sometimes competing demands: pleas from border lawmakers to more aggressively dissuade would-be migrants, and exhortations from human rights advocates to treat them humanely.
The sharpest challenge is in how to deal with thousands of children taken into custody under a policy of not turning away unaccompanied minors. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D -Texas, on Monday released photographs of a temporary border tent in Donna, Texas, where children were placed in crowded areas divided by clear partitions, some huddled under foil blankets on modest bedding.
The photos echoed criticism faced by President Donald Trump for his handling of children at the border, though administration officials said the current conditions are more humane. “The system is being overwhelmed right now,” Cuellar said. “No ifs, no buts about it.”
Although the administration’s message “has been changed,” Cuellar said, with more emphasis on declaring that the border is not open, “they’ve got to do more to overcome the messages you hear in Central America” from smugglers emphasizing purportedly lax enforcement. The congressman urged the Biden team to promote images of people being turned away at the border.
Other lawmakers who have witnessed the border situation also voiced serious concerns Monday. “In general, I saw a situation that was spiraling out
of control,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R- Ohio, who visited the border last week.
The administration’s search for answers comes as the border surge threatens to become an ever-greater logistical and political crisis. Biden’s team has been defensive regarding the border, quickly relaxing Trump’s hardline policies but struggling to take control of the resulting influx. Biden probably will face an array of questions on the border at his first formal news conference Thursday.
Biden on Monday dispatched a delegation led by Roberta Jacobson, his coordinator for the southwestern border, to Mexico to meet with officials there to “develop an effective and humane plan of action to manage migration,” according to National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne.
Jackson will be joined by Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, and Ricardo Zuniga, the State Department’s special envoy to the Northern Triangle, which comprises El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
After going to Mexico, Gonzalez and Zuniga will continue on to Guatemala, where they will talk to officials about how to expand economic opportunities in the region in an effort to give people less reason to flee to the United States, according to senior administration aides.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the U.S. officials will explicitly ask Mexico and Guatemala to help reduce the number of migrants arriving at the border. She listed other steps the administration has taken, including airing thousands of radio and social media commercials in Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras urging people not to come.
Responding to calls by lawmakers to allow reporters into facilities holding migrant children, Psaki said officials were “working to finalize details” to open them up to the news media and to hoped to “have an update in the coming days.
“We feel that it is our responsibility to humanely approach this circumstance and make sure they are treated with treated and put into conditions that are safe,” Psaki said.