President Joe Biden has finally visited the southern border of the US after two years of seemingly ignoring the burgeoning humanitarian crisis occurring there, but his brief trip was rather controversial for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, El Paso authorities were said to have whitewashed the crisis ahead of the President’s visit, clearing unsightly migrant camps and arresting a great many of those who have recently crossed the border into America.
Then came a photo op in which the President was seen speaking to border patrol agents at the border wall, despite his administration’s staunch opposition to expanding the structure.
President Joe Biden tweeted an image of his first-ever border visit Sunday that featured part of the “wall,” or border fence, in El Paso, Texas — after he and his party shut down President Donald Trump’s border wall.
Biden ran in 2020 on a promise to build “not another foot” of Trump’s border project after Democrats refused to fund it in 2019 and claimed that it was motivated by racism and the desire to keep brown or black people out.
And, of course:
As soon as he took office, Biden halted construction of the high bollard fencing that Trump had been building along the wall — though the Biden administration later quietly filled in some gaps that had been left behind.
The Biden administration’s border efforts have been abysmal according to local leaders, and the brief visit doesn’t appear to have instilled any further confidence in the White House’s ability to get anything done about it.
