New York Times tries to blame Republicans for Biden’s border crisis

“G.O.P Governors Cause Havoc by Busing Migrants to East Coast,” blared a New York Times headline reporting on the 7,200 migrants Texas and Arizona have bused to Washington, D.C., since April.

This is a “political tactic” by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona who are looking to “offload the problems caused by record levels of migration at the border,” the New York Times reports.

These 7,200 migrants are “overwhelming” city resources, causing both D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York City Mayor Eric Adams to beg President Joe Biden for federal help.

“The mayors have been playing into the Republican governors’ hands,” Washington Office on Latin America scholar Adam Isacson told the New York Times.

What the New York Times story does not report is how or when these “record levels of migration at the border” started, why they started, or how many migrants have been caught and released into the U.S. by the Biden administration.

If we are going to assign blame for the strain these migrants are causing on communities in the U.S., perhaps the New York Times should try and answer those questions first.

Over 1.3 million migrants arrested for illegally crossing the southern border have been released into the U.S. since Biden became president. That is a population larger than nine U.S. states. The surge began immediately after Biden became president because he ended President Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy and loosened Trump’s Title 42 policy, allowing most families and unaccompanied children into the country. Title 42 has since been further loosened to include most countries other than Mexico.

The New York Times tries to make this policy seem like it is not Biden’s fault. Thousands of migrants “are being allowed into the country to pursue asylum claims because they cannot be returned to Mexico or their own countries,” the New York Times reports.

But the only reason Mexico won’t take these migrants back is that Biden broke off the diplomatic agreement that Trump had established with Mexico’s far-left President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Trump had achieved that agreement by playing hardball, threatening to raise tariffs on Mexican goods until Lopez Obrador caved.

If Biden wanted to solve the current border crisis, he could. All he has to do is return to Trump’s proven effective border security policies.

Until he does, it seems completely fair for the governors of Arizona and Texas to bus fewer than 1% of the migrants released into their states into Biden’s backyard. Maybe he’ll actually be forced to pay attention to the problems he is causing.