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President Biden took a walk Sunday along the border wall in El Paso, Texas, getting his first up-close look at the boundary that has bedeviled his administration with two years of unprecedented chaos and saying the solution is more money.
Accompanied by Border Patrol agents, Mr. Biden reviewed the 18-foot barrier that separates the U.S. from Mexico — a project begun in the 1990s but which gained prominence under his predecessor, former President Trump.
Mr. Biden also visited a border crossing in El Paso, watching officers train on how to sniff out drugs or illegal immigrants being driven into the U.S.
Asked what he learned about securing the border, Mr. Biden said it came down to money.
“They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them,” he told reporters.
After the wall, Mr. Biden toured a migrant welcome center where the local government and charities work to ease the life of those who are caught and released by Homeland Security.
The president asked those running the facility what they needed from him “if I could wave the wand.”
They, too, said money.
Mr. Biden’s visit came three days after he announced a order security strategy.
His new plan applies a carrot-and-stick approach, offering a new pathway to the U.S. to 30,000 migrants a month from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, but threatening to immediately oust those who don’t come via that new path.
Returning those migrants to Mexico takes a page directly out of Mr. Trump’s playbook.
The new strategy finally gives Mr. Biden some answers to point to, and it cleared the way for him to be able to finally visit the border after two years of prodding by Republicans.
Those GOP lawmakers were not mollified.
Indeed, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott greeted Mr. Biden at the foot of Air Force One with a letter blasting the president for how long it took him to get there, for his itinerary while on the ground, and for his overall approach to the border and immigration.
