US president Joe Biden inspected a busy port of entry along the US-Mexico border on Sunday, his first trip to the region after two years in office.
Mr Biden watched as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband.
In a sign of the deep political tensions over the immigration, Republican Governor Greg Abbott handed Mr Biden a letter upon his arrival that said the “chaos” at the border was the “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws.
Mr Biden planned to spend a few hours in the city, currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country.
They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates.
The president was meeting border officials to discuss migration as well as the increased trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which are driving skyrocketing numbers of overdoses in the US.
Biden visited the El Paso County Migrant Services Centre and met nonprofit organisations and religious groups that support migrants arriving in the US. It was not clear whether Mr Biden would talk to any migrants.
“The president’s very much looking forward to seeing for himself firsthand what the border security situation looks like,” said John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman.
But Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott said: “All he’s going to do down there is rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. He’s not going to achieve any solutions that will make the border safer, more secure and stop illegal immigration.”
Mr Biden’s announcement on border security and his visit to the border are aimed in part at quelling the political noise and blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans.
But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years.
From El Paso, Mr Biden was to continue south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders’ summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda.
In El Paso, where migrants congregate before travelling on, border patrol agents had stepped up security before Mr Biden’s visit.
“I think they’re trying to send a message that they’re going to more consistently check people’s documented status, and if you have not been processed they are going to pick you up,” said Ruben Garcia of the Annunciation House aid group in El Paso.
The numbers of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Mr Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended September 30, the first time the number topped two million.
The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take hard-line measures that would resemble those of the Trump administration.
The policy changes announced in the past week are Mr Biden’s biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border.
At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the US legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.
The US will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they travelled through en route to the US. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to “incentivise a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organisations,” saying the policies are “not a ban at all” but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create.
Donald Trump, who made hardening immigration a signature issue of his presidency, travelled to the border several times.
