WASHINGTON, May 12 Republican Senator from Texas Ted Cruz accused US President Joe Biden of exacerbating the migration crisis on the country's southern border.
On May 11, the United States expired the Section 42 rule introduced under former President Donald Trump, which allowed the authorities to expel migrants arriving from regions with a high risk of contracting coronavirus. Against this background, it became known that the federal government decided to deploy 1.5 thousand troops on the border with Mexico. Biden said the country's southern border would be in a «chaotic» situation once the forced deportation rule expired.
«I'm in Brownsville (a city in Texas — ed.), I see firsthand the crisis — it's (Biden — ed.) fault! We have the worst situation with illegal immigration in the history of our country, and it is here — It's about to get worse,» Cruz wrote on his Twitter account.
He also noted that Biden should stop «hiding in the basement» and see for himself the consequences of the humanitarian crisis at the border.
In addition, Cruz accused other representatives of the Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, that this crisis is the result of their decision, and also reproached Biden for stopping the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico. «The border crisis is a deliberate political decision by Biden, Harris and other Democrats in Congress. Biden <…> stopped the construction of the wall and ended the 'Stay in Mexico' policy,» Cruz tweeted.
Earlier there were reports that in the hope of containing the influx of refugees into the United States, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice issued a new rule on May 10 that establishes a «presumption of impossibility of granting asylum» in case of illegal crossing of the American border. The measure is designed to crack down on human smuggling networks and went into effect on May 11. Those migrants who do not declare fear of persecution in their countries and also illegally ended up in the United States will be immediately deported as part of the new requirement of American law.
A record number of migrants arrived at the southern border of the United States under the Biden administration, their influx broke records in 2021 and 2022 and exceeded 2.3 million people. US authorities said they faced more than 1.2 million migrants in fiscal year 2023. At the same time, Fox News and other American media estimate the number of illegal migrants who came to the United States during Biden's tenure as president at more than 6 million people.