Beto: Biden 'really failing us' on border and immigration

Former Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke this week offered a harsh condemnation of President Joe Biden's border policies, asserting he had failed to honor his campaign pledges on the issue amid an ongoing surge in new arrivals and a humanitarian crisis on the route to the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 7 million migrant encounters at the southwest land border since Biden took office. The unprecedented influx has attracted not just domestic political scrutiny, but international concerns over the humanitarian situation. The United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM) in September of this year labeled the Mexican border the deadliest migration land route in the world.

Speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics on Wednesday, the former Democratic presidential candidate stated that "[w]hen Joe Biden was running in 2020, he ran with such incredible moral clarity on this issue: 'We will no longer put kids in cages because they’re not animals, we will no longer tear babies from the breasts of their mothers,' literally what Trump was doing in his family separation policy," The Hill quoted him as saying.

O'Rourke called Biden's pledges and rhetoric on the issue "inspiring," and acknowledged an improvement in tone on the issue over that of the Trump administration, but further lamented that "Biden is not inspiring... he’s really failing us."

"More migrants have died this year than any year on record. And last year more migrants had died than any year on record. They're drowning, they’re dying of dehydration and exposure in the desert, and these are little babies and mothers and f—ing human beings who [don't] deserve to be treated that way," he said. "And when you ban them from coming to this country lawfully and when they know [that] to stay in Honduras, or El Salvador or Haiti is to die in Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti, and they have no other choice but to try to come into this country between ports of entry, risking drowning and death and imprisonment."

"[A]nd yes, some level of separation that is still taking place in this country," he asserted.

The issue of "kids in cages" was a major news cycle during the Trump presidency in which outlets extensively highlighted the separation of families from their children at detention facilities near the border.

O'Rourke's comments, however, appear to be the latest signal that the issue has boomeranged on the Biden administration. In September, for instance, a string of Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (IG) reports went public revealing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities had fallen well short of agency standards, struggling with overcrowding and improper detainee care.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.