Recently we reported on President Biden’s visit to Mexico, and the speculation that he worked out a deal with that country’s president, Manuel Lopez-Obrador, to have Mexico slow down the massive flow of illegal migrants into the U.S.
Biden may want this to happen because the images of migrants swarming over the border are bad optics in an election year, ones which could prevent his re-election. Some might wonder why Biden doesn’t do this himself by simply enforcing the immigration laws already on the books. In this fashion, he could go into the election with a track record of securing the border. That would appeal to many Americans, but it would totally alienate key constituencies of his party which want open borders. Thus it would make sense for Biden to outsource enforcement to Mexico. Presumably the Mexican government would be rewarded for its assistance.
Since Biden’s meeting with Obrador in December, events are giving credence to this outsourcing theory. During that time, border crossings have declined from around 12,000 to 14,000 a day to around 5,000 to 6,000. All the while, as reported in the Mexican media, Mexican authorities were increasing their efforts to disrupt the migrant flow.
Todd Bensman at the Center for Immigration Studies observes that “At Biden’s apparent urging, the Mexican army, national guard, and Mexican immigration officers rushed into the northern borderlands just after Christmas and, with state police, began rounding up tens of thousands of migrants in Piedras Negras and many other cities. They force-fed these thousands into a conveyor belt of government buses and airplanes delivering them to Mexico’s farthest southern states . . . and blocked them there with bureaucracy and new road checkpoints that filter for migrant riders.”
If Biden is re-elected will this Mexican crackdown continue? At that point for sure, it will no longer offer an advantage to him–or the Mexicans.
Read more at cis.org