Biden visits border for first time as critics condemn his migrant crackdown

The reliably Democratic border city in blood-red Texas has been struggling for months to triage thousands of stranded migrants and asylum seekers, many of whom have had little choice but to sleep on the streets in cold, rain, and squalor.

Biden then later traveled to the Bridge of the Americas border crossing, where northbound cars lined up to cross into El Paso from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Wearing a suit and his trademark sunglasses, Biden chatted to local law enforcement officers and watched demonstrations of bordering policing, including by a dog unit searching a car for contrabrand food items.

These latest policy developments, announced on Thursday, include an even more severe crackdown at the US-Mexico border through the increased use of expedited removal, where migrants are rapidly deported without ever seeing a judge.

They also expand a highly criticized Trump-era practice that allows border authorities to quickly expel migrants and would-be asylum seekers to Mexico or elsewhere, without even the chance to ask for asylum.

The Biden administration coupled these heightened deterrence mechanisms, in part, with an announcement of more legal pathways for at least temporary admittance to the US for a limited number of Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans who can afford to bankroll their own commercial travel, own an unexpired passport, and have someone stateside who is willing to sponsor their application, alongside other requirements.

But critics have pointed out that few of the most vulnerable forcibly displaced people within the hemisphere can actually furnish the wealth, resources and connections to meet such narrow criteria.

Detractors also expressed alarm and disdain over news that the Biden administration would be advancing a new rule to further restrict asylum eligibility, drawing comparisons between the Democratic president and his right-wing predecessor.

Some of these people have felt stranded, afraid that if they try to leave the city they will run into immigration enforcement at a checkpoint and end up detained or expelled. Others never even had the chance to take that risk, after immigration officials rounded up and detained scores of them in the last few days.