Dems, GOP Slam WH Plan to Send Troops to Border

Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are ripping President Joe Biden's plan to send 1,500 U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of an expected migrant surge following the end of coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions.

"There is already a humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere, and deploying military personnel only signals that migrants are a threat that require our nation's troops to contain," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

"Come next week, all hell is going to break out all along the border and eventually ... flow into the United States," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary committee, said Wednesday during a press conference on Capitol Hill. "It's ridiculous theater. It will not change the outcome."

The COVID-19 restrictions have allowed U.S. officials to turn away tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border; but those restrictions will lift May 11, and border officials are bracing for a surge. Even amid the restrictions, the administration has seen record numbers of people crossing the border. President Joe Biden has responded by cracking down on those who cross illegally and by creating new pathways meant to offer alternatives to a dangerous and often deadly journey.

For Biden, who announced his Democratic reelection campaign a week ago, the decision signals his administration is taking seriously an effort to tamp down the number of illegal crossings, a potent source of Republican attacks, and sends a message to potential border crossers not to attempt the journey. But it also draws potentially unwelcome comparisons to Biden's Republican predecessor, whose policies Biden frequently criticized. Congress, meanwhile, has refused to take any substantial immigration-related actions.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the move was "primarily to do paperwork."

"This does nothing to stop illegal immigration," he tweeted. "I deployed up to 10,000 Texas National Guard to the border to fill the gaps created by Biden's reckless open border policies."