On Sunday, President Biden was asked about the situation at the southern border during a Mother’s Day bike ride in Delaware. Last Thursday, Title 42, a COVID-19 health policy that allowed for the faster expulsion of immigrants expired. In preparation for the expiration, many officials were anticipating a surge in the number of encounters.
When asked by reporters during the bike ride about the situation at the southern border, Biden stated that the situation was going better than expected. He proceeded to state that he currently had no plans of visiting the border as he believes his presence there would just cause a disruption.
Biden was not the only one to speak about the situation on the Southern border. On Sunday, in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that following the end of the health order there had been a 50 percent decrease in the number of encounters at the border. As he stated on Friday there were 6,300 border encounters and on Saturday 4,200. Despite these favorable numbers, Mayorkas stated that it was still too soon to make an assessment of the new regime.
Mayorkas speculated that the reason for the decrease in the number of immigrants was because Title 42 had put a pause on all criminal penalties that affected those who entered the country illegally. However, with its expiration all of those penalties were back in action.
On Sunday, Biden told reporters that he was hoping that border crossings would continue to decrease, but that in any case, Congress would need to take action to help reform the immigration policy.
