A top Democratic senator is outraged over Joe Biden's plans to send U.S. troops to the southern border, as an unprecedented surge of illegal immigrants prepares to make landfall.
Open borders zealot Bob Menendez (Nj.) condemned Biden's "militarization of the border" as "unacceptable," echoing the Democratic party's past criticism of former President Trump.
The end of Trump's Title 42 border policy is expected to bring upward of 10,000 immigrants to the border every day starting next week. Biden is set to send 1,500 troops to the border to help Border Patrol handle the chaos.
Menendez accused Biden of borrowing from the GOP's "xenophobic" playbook.
"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. Nothing could be further from the truth," he said.
The troops won't be performing any law enforcement functions, which they are forbidden from doing under the Posse Comitatus Act.
The city of El Paso, Texas has already declared an emergency with an estimated 35,000 people waiting to cross over from Mexico. The city has been steadily inundated, with hundreds of immigrants already camped out downtown.
Republicans, who have continuously attacked Biden's handling of immigration, have slammed the troop deployment as an ineffectual band-aid for a historic crisis.
Illegal immigration has exploded to record rates over the past two years, a dismal and predictable consequence of Biden's aggressive unwinding of Trump's restrictive policies.
Republican Lindsey Graham (R-Sc.) called the troop deployment "ridiculous theater," echoing a charge Democrats levied at President Trump, who sent some 5,200 troops to the border in 2018 as large "caravans" marched north from Mexico.
At the time, now-vice president Kamala Harris said that sending troops to the border was "inappropriate" and "political."
As a presidential candidate, Biden condemned Trump's immigration policy as cruel and inhumane. But Biden has appeared to make an expedient pivot toward a more restrictive policy as he prepares to seek re-election.
While the most dramatic example is the border deployment, Biden also plans to revive asylum restrictions once Title 42 falls. This comes after two years of love-hate enforcement of Title 42, which Biden simultaneously condemned and exploited to keep the border crisis in check.
Biden's opportunistic shift has angered leftists who say he is breaking a promise to handle immigration differently than his predecessor and potential 2024 election rival.
Senator Roger Wicker (Ms.) said Biden appears to be "reading the polls."
“If they would begin to resume enforcement of the law, it would be the best step possible,” Wicker said.
