White House Officials Visit Mexican Border Amid Migrant Surge

(Bloomberg) -- Administration officials will brief President Joe Biden after traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border for operational briefings and to tour immigration facilities, the White House said.

The group, led by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice, visited a Department of Homeland Security Border Patrol facility and a Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement center.

The officials discussed capacity needs given a rising number of families and unaccompanied children arriving at the border, and what the White House called “the complex challenges with rebuilding our gutted border infrastructure and immigration system.”

Efforts to restore “safe and efficient procedures” for unaccompanied children were also on the agenda.

The visit comes as Biden has faced criticism from some Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, for a spike in migrant crossings -- particularly by unaccompanied minors -- that some say threaten to overwhelm government shelters.

“Joe Biden’s decision to cancel border security has single-handedly launched a youth migrant crisis that is enriching child smugglers, vicious criminal cartels, and some of the most evil people on the planet,” Trump said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on Feb. 28.

The White House dismissed Trump’s comments.

“We don’t take our advice or counsel from former President Trump on immigration policy, which was not only inhumane but ineffective over the last four years,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a press briefing on Friday.

Also among Saturday’s 14-person delegation were Liz Sherwood-Randall, deputy national security adviser, and Julissa Rynoso, chief of staff to first lady Jill Biden.

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