President Biden confirmed Wednesday that he plans to visit the southern border as part of a trip to Mexico City next week.
“That’s my intention, we’re working out the details now,” he told Fox News, and other reporters, as he disembarked from Air Force one.
Between January 9-10, the president will join Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the North American Leaders’ Summit, where they will collaborate on growing their countries’ economies and addressing current challenges to the region.
Biden has received intense criticism for not stopping by the border once since he assumed office. Now two years into his administration, the border crisis has devolved into an outright catastrophe, with an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants crossing into the interior, overwhelming local towns, border agents, and supply centers.
Current daily apprehensions have been hitting around 7,000 a day and could reach 18,000 if Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed the government to expel migrants to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, is lifted.
In late December, the Supreme Court temporarily preserved the public health measure, which was originally set to expire by the end of 2022, while legal challenges continue to play out. The emergency request was granted to 19 Republican attorneys general who petitioned to keep Title 42 in place, warning that its expiration would trigger an explosion of illegal immigration.
Biden has made a habit out of blaming his predecessor for the chaos at the border. In December, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said her boss had been burdened with a “system that was set: by former president Trump. Biden claimed he inherited “one god-awful mess at the border” when he won election.
Passing the buck on the border mayhem has been a regular practice of the Biden administration. At a CNN town hall in October 2021, Biden gave excuses for his absence at the border.
“I guess I should go down, but the whole point of it is I have not had a whole lot of time to get down,” he said. Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at the time that “he does not need a visit to the border to know what a mess was left by the last administration.”
Vice president Kamala Harris, who Biden initially charged with tackling the border crisis and figuring out the root causes of mass migration from Central America, last visited the border in June 2021.