Biden Officials Blame Former President Trump For Crisis At Southern Border

In some of his first actions in office, President Joe Biden did away with the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which kept foreigners who tried to enter the U.S. illegally in camps in Mexico while they awaited hearings. Instead, Biden returned to a “catch-and-release” policy in which illegal aliens are allowed to enter the U.S.

Suddenly, the flow of foreigners to the border exploded. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents apprehended nearly 100,000 people at the border in February. Last April, just more than 16,000 were captured at the border, according to Pew data.Now, Team Biden is blaming former President Donald Trump.

“Biden officials claim Trump officials did not fully cooperate with his transition team, hindering their ability get a realistic view of potential migration, and that Trump deconstructed the immigration and asylum system – which they then inherited,” The Daily Mail reported on Sunday.

“As we were coming into the administration, we knew we were inheriting an absolute mess from the previous administration — that there were aspects of our legal immigration system that had been gutted and a department that lacked the personnel to administer our laws,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the director of the White House’s office of intergovernmental affairs, according to CNN.An unnamed administration official reportedly said: “When we came into office, like, it was a disaster. I mean, really. The staffing wasn’t in place, the structures weren’t in place.”

But former acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan told CNN that the Biden transition team was “specifically warned again and again and again,” adding that officials even modeled a projected increase in border encounters  if Trump policies were withdrawn.

Still, a Biden official said they were ready for an influx. “Were we prepared? Yes,” the official told CNN. “Everyone wants to be like ‘crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis’ — but it’s like, you know what, actually, things are going really well. Yes, we brought in FEMA, but you know what? That was the responsible thing to do.”The blame game comes as the Biden administration is reportedly considering releasing illegal aliens into the U.S. without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA) — meaning they will depart custody without a court date, Fox News reported.

“Such a decision would be unprecedented if enacted and would place the responsibility of seeking an asylum hearing on the migrants through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or legal assistance,” Fox reported.

Immigrants who are swarming to the U.S.-Mexico border say Biden “promised” them they would be allowed to enter the country, according to recent reports.

“Biden promised us that everything was going to change,” Gladys Oneida Pérez Cruz, a woman who traveled to the border with her son, told The New York Times. “He hasn’t done it yet, but he is going to be a good president for migrants.”

The Times said another woman in tears at the border said, “Biden promised us!”

After weeks of claiming all is well, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week acknowledged that “record numbers” of foreigners are overwhelming U.S. agencies, prompting the department to call in help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“The federal government is responding to the arrival of record numbers of individuals, including unaccompanied children, at the southwest border. Since April 2020, the number of encounters at the border has been rising due to ongoing violence, natural disasters, food insecurity, and poverty in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America,” the DHS said. “The federal government is working around the clock to move unaccompanied children from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) care and to place them with a family member or sponsor until their immigration case is adjudicated.  The risks posed by the spread of COVID-19 have made this mission all the more difficult.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) last week dubbed the situation the “Biden border crisis” and said some foreigners wore shirts saying “Biden, let us in.”

“Joe Biden and the Democrats … they don’t believe in borders. They don’t, therefore, think it is a crisis. They think this is a feature not a bug of their policy. They’ve literally turned detention centers — that are designed to turn people away at our borders — into reception centers. That’s what they’re gonna’ call them. What signal is that going to send? We’ve seen migrants wearing their shirts that say, ‘Biden, let us in,'” Cotton said.