Republicans quickly seized on the issue, characterizing Biden's more lenient policies as 'open borders.' Progressives and immigration advocates who had backed Biden's election quickly proved unappeasable and critical of the administration's policy decisions, as waves of migrants poured toward the southern border. Current and former Biden administration officials say dysfunction and slow decision-making from the top added to what felt like an intractable situation.
The reality at the U.S.-Mexico border over the last three years is unprecedented - back-to-back-to-back records for migrant encounters by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. Millions of people - 2.5 million crossings last year - have shown up at the border, many of them having survived journeys not just through Mexico, but from Central and South America and beyond. The Darién Gap - a 100-mile-long mountainous jungle separating Colombia and Panama - once 'served as a real barrier for people from the rest of the world,' Migration Policy Institute president Andrew Selee told Axios. Now, 'there's a routine built up that allowed half a million people to go through last year.'
These new groups of migrants have encountered a border system stuck decades in the past. One example: Border Patrol stations designed for Mexican adults - not families from Central America.
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