El Paso cleans up migrant camps before Joe Biden border visit

Authorities in El Paso have been tearing down migrant encampments under cover of darkness and dispatching hundreds of migrants across the border to Mexico ahead of President Biden’s scheduled Sunday visit to the overwhelmed border town.

Encampments near the downtown bus station and the Sacred Heart Church, which operates a shelter, have been dismantled by local authorities over the last two nights as the city prepares to host President Biden’s first visit to the southern border, according to a photographer for The Post who witnessed it.

Six buses loaded with mostly Venezuelan migrants were spotted crossing a downtown bridge to Ciudad Juarez, the frontier city in Mexico, Saturday, as police escorted dozens more to a pedestrian crossing.

A Border Patrol agent who did not want to be identified told The Post that 200 people were sent back to Mexico Saturday.

“People are saying that if you are out in the streets the Border Patrol will get you and deport you because the President is coming to El Paso and they don’t want to show him the reality of things,” said Maria Rodriguez, 23, from Venezuela, who told The Post she has been living in a dumpster in El Paso for the last three days. “I hope we get shelter tonight because it took us a lot of courage to go out of that dumpster after three days…We just don’t want to keep running. All we are asking is for one chance.”

Another Venezuelan migrant told The Post he had been sleeping on the porch of a downtown church, and was angry with Biden for making false promises to migrants when he took office in 2021.

“I really think politicians are playing with us,” said Joan Enriquez, 21. “Both side, Democrats and Republicans. We are props to them because like Biden, he first said he wanted to help us, and then he shut the border down and we can’t find a way to get legal in this country.”

Critics slammed El Paso authorities for trying to sanitize the chaos ahead of Biden’s visit.

“El Paso being cleaned up as if nothing unusual ever happened there. Just in time for Biden’s ‘visit to the border,'” tweeted the Border Patrol Union. “We suggest landing in Des Moines, Iowa and telling him it’s El Paso. He’ll never know the difference.”

The Border Patrol Union has complained of low morale among frontline agents who have had to deal with a historic number of migrants crossing the southern border in fiscal 2022. More than 2.4 million migrants have crossed along the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico, with tens of thousands pouring into El Paso in recent weeks.

The situation grew so chaotic, with thousands of migrants crossing into El Paso every week, that Oscar Leeser, the mayor of the border city of more than 670,000 residents, called a state of emergency last month.

“El Paso clears downtown of expansive migrant camps ahead of Biden visit,” tweeted Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores , who represents South Texas. “Why not show him what our border community and law enforcement officials are dealing with on a daily basis.

Throughout the week, migrants huddled near the Sacred Heart church, worried about being shipped back across the border, according to a local report. Police as well as Texas Department of Public Safety officers and US Border Patrol patrolled the downtown area where migrant encampments had been set up, according to the El Paso Times . The patrols began to increase Tuesday night , and have continued through Saturday.

“CBP, which is responsible for securing the US border between ports of entry, uses a layered approach that included patrolling the border itself, nearby areas, and neighborhoods, and conducting checkpoints — both stationary and temporary,” said a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection. “In response to migrants evading apprehension in the El Paso area, the United States Border Patrol has increased the number of agents patrolling the area.”

The agency did not say how many migrants had been detained in the roundups.

El Paso police did not immediately return a request for comment Saturday nor did the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Additional reporting by James Kevoim