President Joe Biden may be making a stop at the U.S.-Mexico border next week. While the news may not seem groundbreaking, it's his first since taking office.
The alert comes courtesy of sources familiar with the discussions who say the White House is strongly considering adding the visit to his trip to Mexico City for the North American Leaders' Summit.
A final decision has not yet been reached on whether the border visit will happen, the sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Biden is expected to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the summit, planned for Jan. 9-10.
One of the newspaper's sources said that even if Biden does visit the border, there will be no new policy announcements from the administration, which has come under criticism over the surge of migrants coming into the United States.
Last year, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested a record 2.2 million migrants crossing the southern border illegally, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
Border crossings also skyrocketed in December over anticipation that the administration would be ending the Title 42 health restrictions at the border, which were enacted under former President Donald Trump to allow the United States to expel migrants before they requested asylum.
The policy was to have expired in late December, but the Supreme Court ordered that it remain in place while discussion continues over whether a lawsuit from several GOP-led states can proceed.
The visit comes after administration officials have dismissed criticism and questions about whether Biden would visit the border.
Republicans say that the lack of an official visit shows the administration is not focused on the border as a crisis situation, but immigration advisers have said that a presidential visit could turn into a photo-op that would legitimize Republican attacks and called on Democrats to craft their own immigration policy.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy recently told reporters that during a meeting after the November election, he invited Biden to come to visit the border with him and told him that the "control of our border is lost."
He also said the GOP-controlled House majority is planning to launch investigations into Biden's handling of the situation.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, however, said during a recent press briefing, when asked about a Biden visit to the border, that his focus is to "come up with solutions" and that he is "focused on making sure that we have the resources to manage what — the challenges that we're seeing at the border."
"If congressional Republicans are serious about dealing with the challenges that we're seeing at the border, they will assist," she added.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris has been tasked by Biden to address the root causes of migration, with a focus on Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala but has visited the border just once, touring a Border Patrol facility and a port of entry in El Paso, Texas, in June 2021.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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