The migrant crisis at the southern border has been an ongoing issue even while Trump was in office calling to build a wall. Biden had high hopes for 2023 believing that this migrant crisis would halt or slow down, but it seems that even 2024 will see a continuation of this very issue.
In December of 2022, there was an astonishing record of more than 250,000 immigrants crossing the Southern border, which sent panic through the American government. In January, Biden decided to ask for more help with funding and immigration reform as well as announcing new measures to help gain more control over the border.
One of the notable aspects he changed was adding a program that would bring 30,000 people to the United States each month to be properly documented and legally brought into the country. Biden, at the time, stated that this would help with the border control problem, but that it would not solve it.
When COVID hit, there was a huge issue with the measures he put in place to help control the border. At this time, even with a drop in reported cases, there were still over 10,000 encounters every single day, and chaos continued.
From May to June of 2021 there was a drop in numbers and it was said that Biden’s strategies were helping. With the numbers being the lowest it had been since 2020, that was progress.
“Our approach to managing the borders securely and humanely even within our fundamentally broken immigration system is working,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a House hearing in July. “Unlawful entries between ports of entry along the southwest border have consistently decreased by more than half compared to the peak before the end of Title 42.”
August 2021 is when things took a turn and the numbers started to skyrocket again to 232,000 and eventually to 240,000 in October.
The administration has been hit from multiple angles, not only attempting to solve the problem at the border but also attempting to give the proper support to cities that have been overwhelmed by immigrants. Many have asked for even more support from the government despite them providing extensive resources and funding to support this increase.
The White House has asked for an additional $14 billion in funding to help control the southern border, however, many Republicans have continued to push for a change in asylum limits.
The White House has said that it’s open to “significant compromises” to control the Southern border, and they are discussing possible actions and measures to take to diminish the border crisis.
An agreement was hopefully going to be made before the Christmas break, but no solution has been found yet.
