Biden Visits Border To Crackdown Migrants

A surge of migration has made El Paso one of the most vivid symbols of the decades-long breakdown in America’s immigration system.

EL PASO — As President Biden arrived here on Sunday to tour an American border city swamped by migrants, he found himself under siege from all sides.

Democrats and human rights activists condemned his new enforcement plan as a “humanitarian disgrace.” Republicans blasted his two-year delay in coming to a border they say is “wide open” to illegal immigration. And Mexican officials — who are preparing to welcome him to a summit of North American leaders on Monday — warned that his proposals would cross a “red line” for them.

In El Paso, a record-breaking surge of migration from across Central and South America has made the city one of the most vivid symbols of the decades-long breakdown in America’s immigration system. Desperate people, often with small children, spend cold nights on park benches, with no legal status and nowhere to go after making the brutally dangerous trek north in the hopes of finding refuge.

The question of what to do with them — Accept them? Detain them? Send them home? — has become one of the most polarized political debates in the United States. And Mr. Biden has not found a solution during his presidency as the situation in El Paso and communities along the border has worsened.

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