President Joe Biden has no plans to visit border during migrant surge

President Joe Biden is not anticipating a visit to the U.S. border with Mexico, despite Sen. John Cornyn and other Republican lawmakers, including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, publicly inviting him to their states’ borders.

“Not at the moment,” Biden said when asked if he had plans to visit the southern border Tuesday before boarding Marine One.

“I’ve said publicly I would welcome him,” said Cornyn, a Texas Republican, though he hasn’t spoken with the president.

The U.S. Border Patrol encountered nearly 100,000 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, far higher than this time last year. Last month was the 10th consecutive month of increased apprehensions, according to Pew Research Center.

Cornyn said he wants Biden to visit to see firsthand how the administration’s immigration policies “simply are making things worse.”

He said he blames Biden for the surge in illegal immigration on the border.

“‘The Biden administration seems to have no interest in enforcing the law and all the signals they are sending is, if you can make it to our borders, you’re going to be able to successfully migrate into the United States regardless of what the law says,” Cornyn said on Fox News this week.

Specifically, Cornyn and many other GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz, are against the Biden administration’s February resumption of the Obama-era “Catch and Release” policy, which is used along the Texas border with Mexico and ended in 2018 under the Trump administration.

Under “Catch and Release,” certain low-risk undocumented migrants, such as migrants with children or those seeking asylum, are released into the United States while they await immigration proceedings.

The president defended his immigration policy in an interview with ABC News Wednesday, saying that adult undocumented immigrants are being sent back.

“The idea that Joe Biden said, ‘Come’ — because I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy,” Biden said .”Here’s the deal, they’re not. The adults are being sent back.”

McClatchy White House correspondent Francesca Chambers contributed to this story.