Biden visits southern border amid criticism of migration, asylum policy

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• John Yang:

  Good evening. President Biden is making his first visit to the southern border as president today after two years of Republican criticism that he's soft on border security. He's in El Paso, Texas, meeting with officials to talk about migration and drug trafficking.

  The trip comes just days after the president announced policies designed to discourage migrants from seeking asylum at the border.

  Last year, more than 2 million people were apprehended at the southern border. White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez is here. Why now? Laura, this is, as we said, the Republicans have been taunting him for two years about going to the border. Why now?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  So the White House says that this trip is because the president wants to see firsthand migration enforcement. He wants to firsthand see how many migrants are coming to El Paso. He stopped at the Bridge of the Americas, which is one of the busiest ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border.

  Of course, as you noted, John, the timing is key here. He's doing this at the start of his third year in the White House and also as the House is being about to be taken over by Republicans, and they are going to be trying to push the administration aggressively on this. So it comes right at this moment.

• John Yang:

  As we said, this is the second shoe this week. He did announce new policies earlier in the week. What were those policies?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  So the actions taken this week essentially are modeled after the same parole program actions that were taken for Ukrainian refugees. And so what those actions are that they apply to Nicaraguans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans. They will all be able to apply it's 30,000 per month would be able to apply to be admitted to the United States for two years. And then also it's paired with some more enforcement actions, 30,000 per month will be expelled to Mexico.

  And then that last part has gotten a lot of criticism because of the fact that it's essentially an expansion of Title 42, which is the deportation policy that was first implemented under former President Trump due to the public health pandemic. The administration, the Biden administration has continued it on since.

• John Yang:

  And so it sounds like this is an effort to relieve pressure on the southern border while also providing other pathways for these immigrants. What's the reaction been?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  So, within his own party, President Biden is facing a lot of criticism from a number of Democrats who have wanted to see Title 42 ended as soon as he took office, as well as from a number of immigrant advocates.

  I was talking to someone who's actually a source on the ground in El Paso who's been traveling with the President today at the different various stops, an immigrant advocate who said that they relayed to White House advisers that they're concerned that these new actions make it so people have to stay in their home country to apply, rather than making the dangerous trip to the border and being able to apply at the border.

  This is trying to get people to apply in their home countries, but the concern is that it's too dangerous in their home countries to even wait and people need to leave immediately.

  So, in addition to that, the White House has been aggressively trying to push back on this idea that it is an expansion of Title 42. The facts are that Title 42, the deportation policy, initially only applied to people coming from the Northern Triangle or people coming migrants coming from Mexico. Now it's been expanded to apply to the Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans.

• John Yang:

  You mentioned the Republicans taking over the House. In his speech early yesterday morning, new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said one of the first hearings was going to be at the border. He called this a crisis of safety and sovereignty. What are the politics of this?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  So the politics has been fraught in the United States for a very long time, John. As it goes all the way back to the George W. Bush administration and then President Barack Obama tried in his second term to pass comprehensive immigration reform and that ultimately failed because the House GOP at the time did not want to take it up.

  President Biden, when he first took office, said that he was going to try to avoid what happened when he was Vice President. And so he sent an immigration reform bill to Congress shortly after he took office. Within the first few weeks, it was the first big bill he sent to Congress. But two years have gone by.

  Now, Democrats don't control both chambers, and he is faced with a split Congress and Republicans have all along during those first two years. And now heading into control of the House are saying that they're going to launch investigations even into Alejandro Majorkas, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, and that they're going to, as you noted, hold hearings at the border.

  So, the White House, the timing is key here. They're clearly trying to get ahead of that as they see some chaos in the House GOP that we witnessed in the past week. And they say that they are trying to find ways to work with Republicans and that if Republicans want to come to an agreement on immigration reform, of course, would likely be coupled with more border security measures that they want to talk to them about that I think it's unlikely.

• John Yang:

  You got about 30 seconds left, President's going on to Mexico. Is this also going to be an issue in meetings there?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  It will because Mexico is key partner in actually these new enforcement actions. They had to agree. The White House had to work with them, and the administration had to work with them to get them to agree to be taking these nationals when the United States decides to expel them if they crossed illegally, if they cross the border illegally. So, those will be ongoing conversations as Mexico works with the U.S. to try to take these nationals.

• John Yang:

  White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez. Thank you very much.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Thank you.