Tipsheet

Report: Biden Admin Pressured El Paso's Democratic Leadership to Cover Up Border Crisis

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  October 19, 2022 9:45 AM

These people are shameless.  A few days ago, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas actually summoned the temerity to blame critics of the border crisis of...fueling the border crisis, arguing that by critiquing the Biden administration's woefully inadequate border enforcement somehow encourages more illegal immigration.  This pathetic spin comes on the heels of the revelation that Mayorkas was made aware that Biden's 'whipping' smear against Border Patrol agents was false before he fell in line and participated in it, for political reasons:

The Secretary of Homeland Security was willing to falsely scapegoat frontline agents.  And multiple anonymous officials are evidently willing to attack Biden's CBP chief, in order to deflect from their flagrant policy failures that have fueled an historic border crisis.  This planted Politico hit piece reminds me of the White House's public gripes against Sec. Xavier Becerra at HHS, a lawyer and career politician with zero relevant experience in public health who was elevated to the position of Health Secretary in the middle of a deadly pandemic, explicitly for 'diversity' purposes.  They've trashed him to journalists on multiple occasions, yet he continues to serve in the position for which he's not remotely qualified.  People don't get fired in this administration.  Accountability is a foreign concept.  Here's the latest target of the White House's cowardly approach to poor performance (language warning):

As migrant encounters along the southern border continue to set records, frustration is mounting inside the Biden administration with the head of Customs and Border Protection. Five current administration officials who work with CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus portrayed him as unengaged in his job, saying he often doesn’t attend White House meetings on the situation on the border, badmouths other agencies to colleagues and superiors, and has not built relationships within CBP and across other agencies to address the influx of migrants at the border. They complain he is unfamiliar with some of the operations of CBP and instead is focused primarily on reforming the culture of the Border Patrol, addressing its long list of allegations of racism and violence...“He’s not in the game,” said another one of the administration officials. “Every time there’s a meeting and he’s in it, we’ll get to a conclusion and Magnus will have some sidebar issue that he wants to raise and we’re all like ‘What the fuck is that about?’” ... Six of those internal critics, for example, remarked to POLITICO that they had seen Magnus fall asleep during multiple meetings, including one earlier this year on how to handle the current swell of Venezuelans crossing the border. Magnus explained to POLITICO that he experienced brief periods of tiredness as a side effect of his multiple sclerosis, the neurological condition he was diagnosed with 15 years ago; and that he adjusted medication levels to deal with those side effects.

I am not here to tell you that Magnus is doing a good job.  If he's frequently skipping meetings, and nodding off when he does show up -- in the midst of this raging crisis -- that's inexcusable.  If he has personal health concerns that prevent him from being actively engaged, he should step aside and focus on his own wellbeing.  It's rather symbolic that Biden's border chief is sometimes literally asleep at the switch as the problem drags on.  If they're so frustrated, they can fire him (and perhaps they might even do so, as he's a thoroughly dispensable white man).  But I am also not here to tell you that Magnus is responsible for the crisis.  He's not.  The failure flows from the very top.  He could be working 16 hour days, or be hibernating like a bear, and it would make little difference.  The Biden administration's policies are driving the explosion of illegal immigration at the Southern border, so it doesn't really matter how well bad policies are managed.  Whining about specific personnel, or shifting responsibility around, feels like an exercise akin to rearranging the Titanic's deck chairs.  It's a meaningless distraction, so long as Biden's disastrous policies remain in effect, which they will.  

Reintroducing a number of successful Trump-era plans is anathema to this crew because it's all about politics to them.  They would, quite manifestly, rather have a deadly humanitarian and national sovereignty catastrophe play out on their watch than admit that Trump might have been right about something.  The tribe can ignore the former; they would never forgive the latter.  Further evidence of the thorough politicization of the border crisis arrived this week in a New York Post investigative report detailing how the Biden administration pressured a Democrat-run Texas city to downplay and cover up what's happening in their community.  All politics:

The White House pressured the Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, to not declare a state of emergency over the city’s migrant crisis due to fear it would make President Biden look bad, The Post has learned. At least three of the El Paso City Council’s eight members have urged Mayor Oscar Leeser to issue an emergency declaration in response to the thousands of migrants who’ve filled the city’s shelters and are being housed in local hotels, sources familiar with the matter said. But Leeser admitted during a private phone conversation last month that he’d been directed otherwise by the Biden administration, one of the officials told The Post. “He told me the White House asked him not to,” Councilmember Claudia Rodriguez said...Rodriguez also said Leeser has repeatedly assured her that he’d declare a state of emergency “if things got worse” — without saying what that meant...At a Sept. 27 City Council meeting, Mayor Leeser also addressed the issue, saying Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) had urged him not to declare a State of Emergency, adding: “The White House has asked, at this point, for us not to do that and they’ll continue to work with us and continue to give us … money through [the] Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Figures posted on El Paso’s official website show the city has received only $2 million in federal reimbursements toward the $8 million it has spent dealing with the migrant crisis. The total cost could end up being much more, with ElPasomatters.org reporting in September the city was spending as much as $300,000 a day to shelter, feed and transport asylum-seeking immigrants.

Have officials in El Paso, and Texas more broadly, considered complaining that they "have not asked for" these "burdens"? That's been the approach of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose zeal for 'sanctuary' status appears more theoretical than actual.  It's a wonderful progressive talking point until any consequences are attached to it.  I'll leave you with this:

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These are the cartels being enriched to the tune of nine-figures per week by this massive human trafficking operation, actively incentivized by the Biden administration -- which often completes illegal migrants' final leg of their trafficking journey, at US taxpayer expense.