Former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke took a broadside at President Biden, attacking his administration’s handling of the Haitian migrant crisis in the Lone Star state.
“Unfortunately, stung by the outcry and caught without a plan, the Biden administration used a cynical Trump-era policy (known as Title 42) to immediately, and without due process, repatriate Haitians back to the country they left a decade ago, one whose streets are now ruled by gangs and criminals,” O’Rourke said in an Op-Ed Friday for El Paso Matters.
“We need to hold accountable those who would treat immigrants as less than human — whether they were separated from their families and placed in cages under Trump or corralled like cattle as they brought food to their families under Biden,” he added.
The Texas border has been besieged in recent weeks by more than 10,000 Haitian migrants and the administration has struggled to find a balance between enforcing US law and appeasing its activist base.
O’Rourke — once a rising Democratic star in the state — has faced numerous career setbacks since leaving Congress in 2019. A Senate run against Ted Cruz in 2018 came up short as did presidential aspirations in 2020. He next plans to run for governor of the state against GOP incumbent Greg Abbott.
That too promises to be an uphill climb as Texas has not elected a Democrat to the governor’s mansion since Ann Richards in 1990.
