The Democratic mayor of a southern border town says Democratic President Joe Biden is in denial over the magnitude of the immigration problem, amounting to a “slap in the face” to the people he serves.
“You have a breach on national security levels that have never before been seen in modern history and you’re not even batting an eye about it, you’re not even calling it a ‘crisis,’ you’re calling it a quote unquote challenge,” Mayor Bruno Lozano of Del Rio, Texas, told the New York Post on Sunday.
On Monday, Biden’s chief spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, refused once again to call the surge of thousands of unaccompanied minors a “crisis,” insisting it’s a “circumstance.”
“Children presenting at our border who are fleeing violence, who are fleeing prosecution, who are fleeing terrible situations is not a crisis,” Psaki said. “We feel it is our responsibility to humanely approach this circumstance and make sure they are treated, and put into conditions that are safe.”
But Lozano has been “pleading” with Biden to act.
In February, just before the disastrous freeze, he sent a video to the president in which footage of empty store shelves and grocery store lines played in the background.
“Mr. President my name is Bruno Lozano, mayor of the city of Del Rio, Texas, and I am pleading and requesting with you to please put a halt to any measures regarding the release of immigrants awaiting court dates into the city of Del Rio and surrounding areas,” Lozano said in the video.
“We do not have the resources available to house and accommodate these migrants within our community.”
The mayor said that if “you do send these individuals into our community, we will be forced to make a decision to leave them without resources under these dire circumstances.”
“I’m asking to please stop, please make another plan for this federal issue,” he said.
But Lozano told the Post on Sunday his request “fell on deaf ears.” More than a month later, some 150 migrants are streaming every day into his community of 35,000.
“I’m not trying to demonize the humanitarian aspect by any means, but my responsibility is to the city of Del Rio and the residents of Del Rio, Texas. My responsibilities are to the American people that got me elected,” Lozano said.
The mayor accused the Biden administration of “condoning unlawful behavior, period.”
“There’s a lawful way to enter the United States, there’s a lawful way to seek asylum and it just undermines the entire immigration process,” he said.
Lozano contended a federal problem has been dumped in the laps of small communities along the border.
“It just blows my mind how disconnected from reality [they are],” he said. “Or maybe they do know; maybe they just don’t want to call a spade a spade, you know, because it’s uncomfortable.”
‘The plan does not look like it’s working’
Meanwhile, a prominent Democratic congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, said Sunday that while the Biden administration has a “plan” to handle the surge, it’s not working at the moment.
“We do have issues with any number of children. The numbers are coming up,” Lee said on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show.” “But I will say that the Biden administration has met with members of Congress. They have a plan. The plan does not look like it’s working at this time, but you have to get it implemented.”
However, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted in an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that everything is going according to plan.
Todd read a quote from Democratic Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez criticizing the Biden administration for incentivizing people to cross the border illegally.
Aren’t you concerned, he asked Mayorkas, that the administration has created a “market efficiency” in which families have concluded they have a chance of getting into the United States if they send their children alone?
“Our message has been straightforward and simple, and it’s true. The border is closed,” Mayorkas replied. “We are expelling families, we are expelling single adults, and we’ve made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children.
“I think we are executing on our plans and, quite frankly, when we are finished doing so, the American public will look back on this and say we’ve secured our border and we upheld our values and our principles as a nation.”
Todd asked Mayorkas how he can say the border is closed if he’s letting people in.
Mayorkas replied that the administration has short, medium and long-term plans, without elaborating.
The DHS chief charged that Trump “dismantled” the asylum system and the Biden administration is “rebuilding” it. In the meantime, he said, the administration will not expel children “into the Mexican desert.”
On March 13, while insisting there was no “disaster,” DHS the agency that handles disasters, FEMA, was mobilized to handle unaccompanied migrant children.
More than 9,400 unaccompanied minors were detained in February, despite a lack of housing space.
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