Border Patrol union chief says Biden’s visit to El Paso port of entry was a waste of time

The head of the Border Patrol Agents Union condemned President Joe Biden’s visit to El Paso, saying he wasted his time visiting the city’s port of entry, where tens of thousands of people enter legally from Mexico every day.

Biden spent more than three hours in the Texas city to see agents search cars and luggage for contraband and also learned about migrant services.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the border crisis was not being felt at the official ports of entry.

“He wasn’t talking to a lowly agent,” Judd said.

“He spent most of his time at the port of entry. We have no problems with entry. That’s not where the problems are.’

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, on Sunday criticized President Joe Biden’s visit to the southern border, saying he didn’t have a full picture of the crisis

Immigrants sleep on the sidewalk near a migrant shelter on January 9, 2023, a day after the President’s visit. During his tour of the border installations, he met no migrants

Judd said the president learned little about the problems border police face when they visit a port of entry where tightly controlled lines of people with their ID cards or passports wait.

Biden stopped in the Texas border town before heading to Mexico City for a summit of North American leaders.

It was his first visit to the southern border since becoming president. For two years, the Republican maintained a constant chorus of demands that he see for himself the strain caused by more than two million people attempting to cross the border each year.

But if the president thought his whistlestop tour would silence critics, he was quickly rebuked.

Judd said his members felt it was too little, too late and were angry that Biden had not heard from rank and file agents responsible for patrolling the border between entry points.

“The only people he met with on border patrol were senior executives,” he said.

“If they don’t tell him what he wants to hear, they can be postponed.

“He did not meet with simple agents at the front.”

Immigrants wade across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas on Jan. 8, 2023, the same day as Biden’s visit

Biden made his first visit to the southern border since becoming president. White House officials could point to another visit during his political career

It also emerged that law enforcement officers conducted a search of the city last week and took migrants off the streets to allow Biden a “sanitized” tour, opponents said.

The number of illegal crossings has also fallen over the past two weeks, which has eased conditions in El Paso.

“Every single Border Patrol agent I’ve spoken to is extremely frustrated and upset by what happened yesterday,” Judd said.

“They’re upset that he wasn’t ready to see what’s really going on. They are upset that they cleaned everything up.

“They’re upset that he knew he was going to bring the mainstream media with him, that suddenly we doubled the number of agents on the ground so that the mainstream media would be like, ‘Hey, nothing going on here, nothing to see .’

Judd said Biden didn’t meet any migrants and that the tour was nothing more than “optics.”

“He did not visit any facilities where migrants were staying,” he said. ‘So he didn’t see anything.

“He didn’t see any of the chaos he created, that he caused.”

Just a short distance from where President Biden took a walk along a “sanitized” section of the border fence in El Paso, migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande River into the United States

In December, this area was packed with migrants sleeping on the streets. On Bon Saturday, the same streets showed no sign of migrants camping out after an eviction

Biden arrived in El Paso in the early afternoon.

From the airport, Biden visited the Bridge of the Americas — actually a series of bridges connecting El Paso to the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez — for an up-close look at the border and a busy port of entry.

He watched border officials demonstrate how to search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband.

A yellow lab was shown spotting fruit and meat in a vehicle before a chocolate lab retrieved what appeared to be a packet of drugs from another car.

When he inspected the port of entry, there was a sign across the border that said “Bienvenido a Mexico.”

From there, he strolled along the border fence and on to the El Paso County Migrant Services Center to learn about the services offered to newcomers.

During his tour, Biden was shown border agents at the El Paso port of entry on the Bridge of the Americas searching vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband

Biden was shown a fake battery used in an attempt to smuggle drugs into the United States

Abbott delivered the letter to Biden at El Paso International Airport, prompting a chilly reception in Texas on Sunday as the president visited the border for the first time since taking office

He asked how many people passed through the center and was told it was around 300 to 500 a day, although sometimes it was as many as 1,000.

His drive to the center via closed roads actually put him close to people who had crossed the Rio Grande River on US soil that day. They cheered as his motorcade thundered past on the other side of the border fence from him.

But he would not have noticed their presence as his convoy sped by.

Judd said Biden claimed before the visit that he wanted to better understand the issues at the border.

“He didn’t understand what he had before he left and again, this is politics,” he said.

“It was just optics. It was a photo shoot.”