White House insiders reveal furious Biden exploded at border crisis
‘You could hear the president dropping f-bombs all over the West Wing’: White House insiders reveal explosive details about how furious Joe Biden exploded at staff as they struggled to get a grip of border crisis
- Biden saw the crisis on the border as one of the most pressing problems of his presidency in 2021, along with vaccine misinformation, according to a new book
- The president raged at his aides and said the situation made his ‘blood boil’, Chris Whipple writes
- There were more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in 2021, and more than 2.3 million this year: the imminent end of Title 42 is worsening the problem
- Biden’s aides told Whipple that the president’s frustration was down to ‘a lack of solutions’, and he was ‘on a short fuse’ about the issue
A furious Joe Biden was ‘dropping f-bombs’ throughout the White House as his team scrambled to find answers to the migration crisis, according to a new book on his presidency.
Biden’s aides told author Chris Whipple that the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border ‘made his blood boil’.
Along with vaccine misinformation, it was the problem that most aggravated Biden.
Whipple’s book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, details how the Biden administration struggled to deal with surging migrant arrivals from Mexico throughout 2021 – and faced mounting criticism.
Joe Biden, pictured on Thursday giving a Christmas address, was enraged by the situation at the border throughout 2021, according to a new book
Migrants are pictured on the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, in a stand-off with the Texan National Guard in El Paso
Migrants are seen waiting to cross into the United States from Mexico
‘Meanwhile, illegal immigrants kept arriving. And Biden was furious,’ the book says.
‘Aides had rarely seen him so angry.
‘From all over the West Wing, you could hear the president cursing, dropping f-bombs (he’d always apologize when women were present).’
There were more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in 2021, and more than 2.3 million this year.
Border agents have on multiple months recorded more than 200,000 encounters.
One senior adviser, according to a Fox News, which obtained an advance copy of the book, told Whipple that the frustration came from a ‘lack of solutions.’
‘It’s like, ‘How would you feel if you were me and these were the solutions you had?’ It’s the weight of the presidency, right?’ the adviser said.
Whipple also describes Biden as ‘on a short fuse’ on a separate issue later in the year.
‘Early in his term he had reserved the f-bomb mostly for discussions of the southern border, but lately he was using it more often,’ the book says.
Texas sent in National Guard troops and State Troopers to the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez after a huge surge in the number of migrants crossing the Rio Grande river into the U.S. in recent days. The crossing is pictured on Tuesday
Border Patrol agents are seen allowing small groups to enter through a large gate in El Paso on Tuesday
Texas National Guard vehicles are seen along the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday
Officials said over the weekend 2,500 migrants were arriving in El Paso daily – a figure that could rise to ‘4,000, 5,000, maybe 6,000’
The book, which goes on sale on January 17, has already made headlines for reporting that Biden once described Vice President Kamala Harris as a ‘work in progress.’
Biden made Harris his border point-person – a role that Barack Obama had given him.
Harris has been criticized for seemingly failing to give the issue enough attention.
The situation has worsened in recent months as Title 42 – a pandemic-era policy forcing migrants to return across the border immediately while they wait the processing of their claim – is set to expire.
El Paso, the Texas border town, has become the epicenter of the problem, and struggled to address the abnormal influx of immigrants.
Currently there are dozens of migrants sleeping on the streets in below-freezing temperatures.
Extensive lines of illegal immigrants waiting for the next bus out of town have taken shape
Newly arrived illegal migrants sleep on the cold streets of El Paso Texas outside the city’s Greyhound station
Migrant crossings at the southwest border have increased significantly in 2022
Officials said over the weekend 2,500 migrants were arriving in El Paso daily – a figure that could rise to ‘4,000, 5,000, maybe 6,000.’
Many believe that number could be even higher when Title 42 ends, with Axios reporting 14,000 daily crossings could occur.
Officials in El Paso confirmed they will start sheltering migrants at Bassett Middle School and Moorehead Middle School – which are currently vacant.
The city is also planning to use the Convention Center as a migrant shelter later in the week to provide ‘essential services’.
The Department of Homeland Security has requested an additional $3 billion to deal with the impending onslaught of migrants – on top of the $56.7 billion Biden requested to be included in the fiscal year 2023 spending bill Congress is currently negotiating for the department.
‘How did we get here?’ America’s migrant debacle EXPLAINED: push-and-pull economics, path dependency, and political gridlock have led to today’s scenes on the southern border … but broken immigration systems are hard to fix
President Joe Biden was slammed by his Republican rivals this month for declining to visit the US-Mexico border on a trip to Arizona because, in his words, there were ‘more important things going on.’
His opponents on the right point to large numbers of Latin America migrants at the frontier; decry an ‘invasion’; and warn of ever-greater people flows once a pandemic entry restriction known as Title 42 comes to an end.
A standoff over US immigration policy was on Thursday stalling movement on a $1.66 trillion government funding bill in the Senate, but after heated debate the bill passed in a 68-29 vote late that evening – sending the package to the House for approval on Friday.
Opinions vary over whether the latest surge at the southern border is business-as-usual for a nation that was founded on immigration, or how this latest influx, together with the millions already living in the US without papers, should be addressed.
To inform readers, DailyMail.com is offering an overview of unauthorized immigration to the US to examine how we got to where we are today, and what might happen next.
The population of unauthorized migrants crossed 10 million in the mid 2000s and has since held relatively stable in the region of 11-12 million, according to numbers from the US Census Bureau, DHS and estimates from the CIS, a right-leaning think tank
WHERE WE ARE TODAY:
The fiscal year that ended in September doubtless saw unusually high numbers of encounters between migrants and guards at the southern frontier — 2.8 million such incidents, surpassing 2 million for the first time.
The influx included tens of thousands from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as the more traditional flows of people from Mexico and Central American nations.
Many of them claim asylum upon entering the US.
The number of those seeking entry into the US is set to rise further upon the ending of Title 42, a public health rule that suspends asylum-seeking rights under US and international law on grounds of halting the spread of Covid-19.
Migrants have been denied the right to seek asylum 2.5 million times since March 2020 due to Title 42, which was set to lapse on Wednesday until the US Supreme Court ordered a temporary hold on its expiration.
The rule has been applied disproportionately to those from countries that Mexico agrees to take back: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and more recently Venezuela, as well as Mexico.
Migrants from those countries are expected to drive an anticipated increase in asylum claims once the rule is lifted.
Pictured: Texas National Guard troops block immigrants from entering a high-traffic border crossing area along Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas on December 20, 2022 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Migrants occupy the streets surrounding the Greyhound station ahead of the since extended deadline. The Western Texas city has struggled to address the abnormal influx of immigrants amid uncertainty over the order
PUSH AND PULL FACTORS:
The decades-long flow of migrants from the poorer and occasionally unstable countries of South and Central America can be explained by a series of push and pull factors: escaping poverty and seeking better-paid work and social services in the US.
For example, Guatemala, one of the source countries for many US-bound migrants, has more than half of its population living in poverty. Even if Guatemalans land a job, wages in almost all cases do not meet basic living costs.
Many migrants are also fleeing political turmoil, crackdowns on free speech, domestic abuse or gang violence and the breakdown of law and order — which can all provide a basis for an asylum claim.
The increase this past year of migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua echoes this trend — those mismanaged, leftist countries have also become mired in political turmoil, corruption and economic malaise.
Still, elevated migration this year could just be due to migrants trying to fill the unusually high number of job vacancies in the US, possible even replacing unauthorized migrants who left during the pandemic.
Alex Nowrasteh, an economist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think, says the elevated people flows are really an effect of the ‘hottest labor market’ in recent memory, with some 9.8 million private sector job vacancies at the end of June.
Latin Americans can get between a fourfold and tenfold wage bump from working in the US absent enough legal work visas, ‘illegal migrant workers’ cross the border to fill those jobs, says Nowrasteh.
Record immigrant flows may not be down to Biden, but instead the million of job vacancies in the US. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Pictured: Texas National Guard troops block immigrants from entering a high-traffic border crossing area along Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas on December 20, 2022 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Three women warm themselves by a makeshift fire near the border
WHAT IS TITLE 42?
Title 42 border restrictions are a public health order that enabled U.S. authorities to turn back most migrants, including people seeking asylum from persecution.
They were introduced during the pandemic and were set to expire on Wednesday, after several extensions.
But the number of migrants now attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border is at its highest level in two decades – with even larger numbers expected to arrive once the pandemic-era order is lifted.
Many of those were repeat crossers because Title 42 carries no legal or criminal consequences.
Title 42 authority has been applied unevenly across nationalities.
Mexico has agreed to take back migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico – and limited numbers from Cuba and Nicaragua.
Title 42 is one of two major surviving Trump-era policies to deter asylum at the border.
POLITICAL GRIDLOCK:
Fears over ‘illegal’ immigration ratcheted up in the 1970s amid people fleeing Mexico’s economic turmoil at the time. After several efforts, Congress in 1986 passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act.
That law aimed to staunch the flow of unauthorized migrants by cracking down on US employers who hired those without papers. The act also granted an amnesty to unauthorized workers already in the US, granting legal status to more than 2.7 million people.
Continued migrant flows from Mexico’s tanking economy in the 1990s spurred efforts to tighten the southern border with more guards, fencing, and technology, though this often only drove migrants to take riskier routes through the deserts.
The population of unauthorized migrants crossed 10 million in the mid 2000s and has since remained relatively stable in the region of 11-12 million, according to numbers from the US Census Bureau, the Department of Homeland Security and estimates from the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank.
President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in 2013 declared that ‘America’s immigration system is broken’ and launched an effort to fix it, which failed to gain traction. He ultimately became known as the ‘Deporter-in-Chief’ for the record levels of ejections of unauthorized migrants under his watch.
Politicians have repeatedly led similar efforts to pass new immigration laws, often involving boosted border security and pathways to citizenship for unauthorized migrants, but have not been able to secure enough support from across the political spectrum.
Another study from the Cato Institute warned that ‘path dependency and politics preserve the status quo and make it difficult to reach consensus on immigration’, suggesting even that lawmakers were not up to the task.
‘Congressional reform is likely necessary to replace the patchwork of current immigration policies with a coherent system that channels the constructive powers of immigration rather than disrupting them,’ researchers said.
There are few signs of political compromise on the horizon.
This past year, Republican governors including Gregg Abbott of Texas have packed thousands of migrants aboard buses and sent them to Washington DC, New York and other liberal cities to make a political point.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis even sent two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, an island retreat for liberal luminaries. Still, such efforts were likely inconsequential — migrants are adept at travelling on their own steam.
The Biden administration appears unfazed by the record people flows.
It has highlighted the ‘innumerable contributions’ newcomers make and calls for more of the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants to get a pathway to living and working legally.
The administration says 73 percent of working age unauthorized immigrants have jobs, that they earn about 40 percent less than others, and are more entrepreneurial and more likely to start a business.
Living in the shadows also makes them less likely to pay tax, says Cecilia Rouse and other White House economic advisors. Only about 50-75 percent of undocumented immigrants pay tax, compared to nearly all regular wage earners.
Migrants were seen sleeping in below-freezing temperatures Tuesday night ahead of the deadline to repeal Title 42, a guidance implemented during the pandemic that makes it easier for border officials to turn away asylum seekers
Troops watch as desperate migrants meet at the border near the Rio Grande on December 21
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:
It remains unclear what happens after Title 42 lapses, if indeed that transpires. Border cities like El Paso, Texas, have warned of being unable to cope with an influx of migrants that will overstretch their ability to respond.
The Biden administration has been relatively quiet about how migrants who plan to claim asylum should enter the US when the Trump-era limits end, fueling rumors, confusion and doubts about the government’s preparedness.
Anti-immigrant pundit Todd Bensman, a CIS fellow, warns that a ‘Category 5 is barreling down’ on the US, with 540,000 border crossings every month — or 6.4 million a year — when Title 42 is nixed.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, another right-leaning research group, puts hope in the Republicans who will next year control the House of Representatives.
‘There is still far more that needs to be done to regain control of our borders,’ Stein said, adding that the new GOP Congress will ‘address the dire situation stemming from the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce countless immigration laws.’
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