Haitian encampment removed under bridge in Texas 3:59
(CNN) -
When members of the Congressional Black Legislators Group (CBC) arrived at the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris this week for an event marking the group's 50th anniversary, the conversation centered quickly in the humanitarian crisis on the border between the United States and Mexico.
Gathered on a mild afternoon on the lawn outside the Naval Observatory, people familiar with the event said Harris engaged members one-on-one in his pressing concerns about the situation in Texas, where thousands of Haitian migrants have been gathering underneath. a bridge in miserable condition.
Harris, during the impromptu sessions, encouraged the group to keep talking about the issue, although in many cases, Democrats are speaking out against how President Joe Biden is handling the situation.
"I give it a lot of credit," Rep. Joyce Beatty, president of the CBC, said on CNN.
"Opening its doors to us, asking us to commit ourselves and to be very clear in our message."
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The immigrant situation in Texas has exposed deep divisions both within the Biden administration and among some of the president's staunch allies on how to tackle the thorny issue of immigration.
Listen to the warning of Mexican agents to migrants 3:20
Debates about how to handle the worsening immigration crisis have come to light, exposing the challenges facing the president on an issue that has no easy solution.
Biden's silence
Biden himself has remained publicly silent, even as debate swirls around him about his administration's actions, prompting some members of Congress to say they want to know more.
"I think there are many concerns that the American people would love to hear President Biden's speech regarding the whole situation," said Rep. Yvette Clarke, Democrat of New York and co-chair of the House of Representatives Haiti Legislators Group. .
Disputes over the aggressiveness with which rules that prevent migrants from staying in the United States should be applied have raged for months among White House officials, who have heard from activists concerned about actions aimed at dissuading people from try to enter the country.
Those activists have argued that Biden is not fulfilling his campaign promise to reinstate America's obligations to assist migrants fleeing instability or violence.
The parents of 303 migrant children separated at the border during the Trump administration have yet to be found, a court file says
Biden, while committed to creating a more humane system, has raised concerns that he is seen as overly lenient, according to officials, who said the president fears he may open himself up to political attack while potentially aggravating the situation by sending a signal for migrants to come to the United States.
Criticisms inside the White House
The conflicting instincts have forced the administration to walk a tightrope that does not seem to have satisfied anyone.
"You can't send out a press release - and deport - to get out of a global problem," said a person familiar with internal White House discussions.
After entering office promising to install a more humane immigration system, Biden is coming under harsh criticism from members of his own party for overseeing policies that they say more closely resemble those of the then president's tenure. Donald Trump.
"I'm pissed off. I'm unhappy," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, said during a news conference Wednesday.
"And I am not unhappy with just the cowboys running over Haitians and using their reins to whip them. I am unhappy with the administration. We are following Trump's policy."
The White House has rejected comparisons to the Trump administration, pointing to steps Biden took in the hours after he was sworn in to reverse some of the harsh tactics employed by his predecessor.
Violence and the economy, main causes of migration 3:48
"We couldn't see it more differently from the policy of the previous administration, which the president feels, we all feel, was inhumane, immoral, ineffective, it wasn't working operationally," press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.
"Due to the dysfunction of it, we have led to a very broken system that we are dealing with today."
Inside the White House, Biden's advisers have debated for months the benefits of tougher immigration enforcement.
Some have argued that imposing a stricter order on the process will ultimately create better political conditions to pass substantive immigration reform in Congress, people familiar with the discussions said.
But others have largely ruled out the possibility of legislative action, saying that Biden must keep his promises to instill greater humanity into the system, which they say was stripped during Trump's term.
Current prospects for legislative action on immigration appear bleak, and hopes of granting a path to citizenship for certain undocumented immigrants in a massive budget bill suffered a major setback last weekend.
The arrival of the Haitians was a surprise
After eight months of Biden's tenure, disagreements about the best way to approach immigration appear to have reached a turning point after more than 14,000 immigrants, many of them of Haitian origin, crossed into Del Rio, Texas and formed a makeshift camp under a bridge.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told reporters Thursday that the arrival of the migrants was a surprise, saying they had no information to suggest there would be a surge the size of the one experienced in the last week.
The US is "working closely with the Mexican government and our partners in the US government to try to pull that thread and see how we can improve the visibility of these organized movements," the official said.
According to the official, DHS has been closely monitoring the movement of migrants throughout the hemisphere and working with law enforcement partners in transit countries. But a Customs and Border Protection official told CNN that the administration did not anticipate the pace at which people would arrive, some of whom had traveled by bus rather than on foot.
The administration has worked to quickly evict the camp, dispatching a stream of agents to expedite the expulsion of some of the migrants.
After images of horse officers cornering families came to light, DHS said it was investigating possible misconduct and announced Thursday that horse patrols in Del Rio would be temporarily suspended. An official said the agency aims to conclude the investigation by the end of the week.
The measures taken so far have not served to assuage the concerns of immigrant rights groups.
"They are suspending the use of horses as if horses are the problem and not border policy," said one advocate.
Chaos in Haiti after deportation of migrants from the US 0:42
The Biden administration continues to rely on a public health rule, known as Title 42, that was put in place at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and that allows border authorities to turn away immigrants from the southern US border. Senior administration officials have cited this rule to argue that the border is effectively closed.
The special envoy for Haiti resigns
In recent days, the administration has stepped up expulsions and increased the pace of repatriation flights to Haiti, creating a point of friction with those who have argued against sending migrants back to an unstable situation. .
Migrant flights from Texas have also exposed disagreements among Biden's advisers and prompted an angry resignation Thursday of the administration's special envoy to Haiti.
"I will not be associated with the inhumane and counterproductive decision of the United States to deport thousands of Haitian refugees," Daniel Foote, the special envoy, wrote in his resignation letter Thursday.
The White House and the State Department questioned Foote's description of the events that led to his resignation, including his claim that his recommendations had been "ignored and dismissed."
"There have been multiple high-level political talks on Haiti, in which all proposals, including those led by Special Envoy Foote, were fully considered in a rigorous political process," said Psaki.
"There are disagreements in these political processes. The president appreciates it, the Secretary of State appreciates it. That is certainly a part of having discussions and having robust discussions about the best way forward for difficult circumstances," he added.
Other officials said Foote felt marginalized because his proposals on stabilizing Haiti after the assassination of the country's president earlier this year were rejected.
One official said that included the suggestion to send US troops to Haiti.
"Some of those proposals were detrimental to our commitment to promoting democracy in Haiti," said Psaki.
"I'm not going to elaborate on that any more."
However, Foote has not been the only Biden ally who has spoken out against the administration's immigration policies.
Democrats across the ideological spectrum have also lobbied the White House to end what they see as a continuation of Trump's harsh practices.
In a sign that the White House recognized the precarious political situation accompanying the development of the crisis, White House officials on Thursday heeded NAACP President Derrick Johnson's demand two days earlier for a meeting at the White House.
Johnson sat down Thursday afternoon with domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, director of public participation and former Congressman Cedric Richmond, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and laid out a series of recommendations including the immediate suspension of the deportation flights to Haiti.
But White House officials offered little sign of their willingness to make major policy changes.
"They recognized that what is happening is horrible and they listened to those recommendations," said a source familiar with the meeting.
"There was not so much back and forth ... but they listened to those recommendations."
In many ways, the images of Border Patrol agents confronting migrants on horseback, brandishing their reins against Haitian migrants, served to intensify public attention to the situation of those migrants and pressure on the Biden administration to change. his use of Title 42 to expel migrants.
Progressives have long called on the Biden administration to suspend the use of that law to immediately remove many migrants seeking asylum at the southern US border.
But those calls appear to be reaching a fever pitch following the treatment of Haitian migrants in Texas.
"The horrible images that are displayed on the border - and I have never seen in 27 years of service, in 27 years of being on the immigration committee - I have never seen that," Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told CNN.
There is no indication that the White House is willing to back down from the use of Title 42, but it is clear that the administration feels more pressure now to make swift changes to its policies regarding Haitian migrants.
Harris criticizes Border Police for treating Haitians 0:44
"I think what we discuss is being discussed and considered (by the White House)," Jackson Lee said.
Harris, who was tasked earlier this year with addressing the causes of migration, has taken a semi-public approach amid the current crisis.
After images of the officers on horseback surfaced on Tuesday, she told reporters that "human beings should never be treated that way and I am deeply concerned about it."
His office released an unusual statement about a phone call he had with Mayorkas this week, in which he used harsh language to describe his "grave concern about the mistreatment of Haitian migrants," including by border patrol agents. by horse.
During an appearance on CNN on Thursday, Beatty described the meeting between the CBC and Harris on the issue of Haitians on the US-Mexico border.
"She met with us, with all of us. She invited us - all of us, not a special group - to go out and met with us. And she did not shy away from the question of speaking, she was very clear in her position, and we he encouraged us to meet with the administration as well, "said Beatty.
One of the most absent voices in the current immigration debate is that of Biden.
He has not commented publicly on the scenes of despair in Del Rio, and when he tried to refer to images of officers on horseback during a meeting in the Oval Office Tuesday, his words were drowned out by the shouts of members of his team of press.
"His actions make it clear how horrible and horrifying these images seem to him," Psaki said Thursday.
His fellow Democrats said they remained hopeful that Biden would make a public statement on the matter shortly.
"I hope he does," Clarke said.
"It is very clear that it has really shaken many in our nation who, only from a humanitarian point of view, are concerned ... that those who are yet to be dealt with at the border are in a emaciated situation."
CNN's Arlette Saenz and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.
Biden Immigrants in the US