Biden Admin Gets Ready To Open More Border Crossings As Migrant Surge Reaches New Levels

The Biden administration is set to reopen several crossing points along the southern border this week, even as the migrant crisis in the U.S. reaches new levels, Axios reported on Tuesday.

The White House said Tuesday that a number of border crossings that were shut down last month to deal with a surge in immigration are now going to reopen on Thursday, according to Axios. Migrant encounters at the southern border in December passed 300,000, the highest monthly number on record, as thousands of migrants pour across every day.

Among the points being reopened are a border crossing in Lukeville, Arizona, a pedestrian crossing in California’s San Ysidro Port of Entry, a crossing in Nogales, Arizona, and the Eagle Pass International Bridge I in Texas, according to Axios. The Biden administration also said that Mexico agreed to expand its efforts to crack down on illegal immigration on its side of the southern border, including by ramping up deportations to southern Mexico and Venezuela, CBS News reported.

State Department Secretary Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Mexico last month to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss working jointly to crack down on illegal immigration. Biden administration officials will meet with the Mexican government again next month to discuss progress.

Almost 800,000 migrant encounters have been recorded at the southern border since Oct. 1, the beginning of fiscal year 2024, Fox News reported. Total migrant encounters at the southern border for fiscal year 2023 crossed 2.4 million, a 40% increase since 2021 and a 100% increase since 2019, according to Customs and Border Protection.

“There is enough authorities that either the President or Secretary Mayorkas has to fix this crisis today. I don’t know that they would be able to solve it completely, but it would go a long way to driving the numbers down. They’re not using that authority, they haven’t used it for three years now,” Chad Wolf, DHS Secretary under the Trump administration, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Biden administration created this crisis and they have the ability to solve it.”

DHS and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.