Top Republican calls on Homeland Security to hand over communications with Secret Service for Biden’s ‘sanitized’ border photo op where he saw no migrants
- Since Biden took office, Republicans have begged him to visit the southern border and see the many thousands of migrants parked on either side
- When Biden finally came to visit, he bounced back and forth between the cleaned facilities for three hours
- Disaffected Republicans slammed visit as ‘photo op’
Rep. James Comer is asking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to turn over documents related to President Biden’s Texas trip to determine if they were involved in the “cover-up” of the sordid, crowded conditions commonly observed on the southern border are.
Since Biden took office Republicans have implored him to visit the southern border and see firsthand the many thousands of migrants parked on both sides of the US-Mexico border and in surrounding cities — foreign nationals who often survived a perilous journey and came back to America with only her son’s clothes in hopes of a better life.
When Biden finally did so — the first known border tour he’s taken in his five decades in public office — he spent three hours hopping between facilities that had been cleaned up for his visit. He has not been seen meeting migrants.
Dissatisfied Republicans criticized the visit as a “photo opportunity”.
Joe Biden made his first-ever trip to the southern border this month with a one-hour stop in El Paso, Texas en route to the Three Amigos Summit in Mexico. Comer pointed out that the president waited until the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives to travel
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) hit 233,740 in November. It’s the slight month-over-month increase and the third-highest month of encounters in recent history, all under President Joe Biden. Since Biden took office, CBP has encountered about 4 million migrants
“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is monitoring the possible involvement of the Department of Homeland Security in the cover-up of poor southern border conditions in El Paso, Texas to benefit President Biden’s recent three-hour photo op,” said Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky .) said in a statement.
“These camps were cleared immediately prior to President Biden’s visit to the city on January 8, 2023. We are writing to understand the circumstances surrounding DHS’s role in clearing homeless illegal frontier workers for President Biden’s visit to El Paso.”
Comer wrote a letter requesting all documents and communications between DHS, the Secret Service, and the city of El Paso or the state of Texas regarding homeless camp evictions.
Last year saw an all-time record of 2.3 million border arrests, and border crossings don’t appear to be slowing this year – there were 561,000 arrests in the first two months of fiscal 2023.
Texas National Guard troops have been deployed on the US side of the border to try to prevent people from crossing during Biden’s visit
Migrants gather at the border fence around El Paso after crossing the Rio Grande into US territory. Here they wait for border officials to open a gate and begin processing
What the president missed during his trip were the miserable makeshift camps around El Paso, which sparked headlines last month about migrants taking to the streets.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, police teams went through the city center and picked up migrants who had entered the country illegally.
“It’s a dog and pony show, volunteers helping dozens of migrants sheltering at Sacred Heart Church told : ‘You cleaned everything up for him.’
Officials say they are just enforcing the rules and that any timing is random.
But a day before the President’s arrival, the scene couldn’t be more different than the chaos at the end of December. The number of migrants soared then, as arrivals planned their trips to coincide with the expected end of Title 42 — a Trump-era restriction that eventually earned a stay of execution in the Supreme Court.
Then hundreds of mostly Venezuelan refugees camped out on the sidewalks around the downtown Greyhound bus terminal.
Shortly before the president’s visit, their bundles of clothes and belongings were gone after border agents swept through the area during the week.
Last week, Comer invited four Border Patrol officers to testify before his committee in one of the first hearings of the new Congress on Feb. 6.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas could be “impeached” over the border crisis as members of his party chart a course that moderates have tried to turn on the pauses.
“If those numbers are even higher in December and breaking new records, should he stay at this job?” McCarthy said so, according to CNN on Tuesday
“We can investigate and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment investigation.”
The Republican leader vowed not to “predetermine” Mayorkas’ fate and reiterated past assurances that he would not “use impeachment for political ends.”
Though he added, “But if the person is neglecting their duties and they — they’re harming Americans and Americans are actually dying from lack of their jobs, that could lead to this opportunity.”