President Joe Biden’s border crisis has forced Texas community leaders along the U.S.-Mexico border to take matters into their own hands. One border mayor has sounded off on the absence of stable policies that have led to his city’s distress.
In an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz, a Democrat, expressed his frustration with the Biden administration’s immigration policy decisions. According to Mayor Saenz, several of Laredo’s public services have been stretched thin in order to provide humanitarian aid, transportation, and medical attention to illegal aliens who have used Laredo as a transit point. Additionally, the South Texas city has had to foot the bill for most of the expenses incurred by unlawful migrants. The federal government has provided very little support to alleviate the border community’s influx of illegal aliens.
The Texas Democrat pulled no punches describing his own party’s indifference to securing the border, saying, “We’re spending billions of dollars on alternative things but immigration isn’t given priority. Border Patrol isn’t being funded to the extent Border Patrol has to be funded.” He continued, “[t]heir workload has increased to three times or four, and yet they’re not funded. So, that kind of leads me to think the Democrats have the same mentality [toward the Border Patrol]as defunding law enforcement generally.”
Mayor Saenz pointed to the Trump administration’s successful policies that helped maintain reasonable control over the southern border. Specifically, the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), the program that requires migrants applying for asylum to the U.S. to wait in Mexico until their claim is processed. The Laredo mayor warned against the Biden administration’s renewed attempt to scrap MPP, after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order requiring that it be reinstated, as it would almost certainly worsen the crisis. Moreover, Mayor Saenz pushed for the formation of a physical or virtual wall to stop unauthorized entries.
Saenz isn’t the only border city official who has spoken out against the president’s handling of the crisis. In February, Democratic mayor of Del Rio, Bruno Lozano, pleaded for the Biden administration to end the disastrous “catch and release” policy, allowing countless illegal aliens to be released into his community. That same month, then-mayor of McAllen, Jim Darling, another Democrat, made similar calls for federal action to halt the massive increase of COVID-positive migrants into his city.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, rather than focusing on relief for these struggling border cities, congressional Democrats have opted to find other means of granting amnesty for 8 million illegal aliens after the Senate Parliamentarian’s decision to remove amnesty from the budget reconciliation package. The Biden administration and Congress must reverse course and stop prioritizing illegal aliens. After months of coming in second to immigration lawbreakers, thousands of Americans need the undivided attention of federal officeholders to repair the disaster in their communities.