The Mayor of El Paso took one look at the empty streets around the Greyhound Bus terminal where migrants had once slept, and the trickle of new arrivals crossing the Rio Grande river, and realized that President Joe Biden may leave his border city with the idea that the crisis was over.
So, he took matters into his own hands.
Oscar Leeser, a Democrat who has clashed with the Biden administration over its handling of the border crisis, printed out a selection of images he had taken with his phone.
‘To ensure President Biden received an accurate and full picture of what El Paso has been dealing with since August, I met with him privately and presented him a binder with photographs of my personal visits to the different migrant crossing and gathering areas over the last 6 months at different times of the day and night,’ he said.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said he wanted to make sure that President Joe Biden had the full picture of how the border crisis was impacting his city. So, he gave him these pictures
The picture book contains dozens of images that Biden didn’t see during his visit, including lines of migrants – hundreds strong at times – who had just crossed from Mexico
‘This included crossing points with thousands, sleeping areas on the street and people sleeping at El Paso International Airport.
‘It was important for me that he see these images, which were not part of his scheduled stops.’
The images, obtained by DailyMail.com, offer a powerful account of how a city on the frontlines is coping with the more than two million people who tried to cross from Mexico into the United States last year.
They resemble images from humanitarian crises in war zones or amid famine.
Dozens of new arrivals are wrapped in aluminum blankets as they wait in front of the border wall for transportation to a processing center in the dark of night.
In another, a group of young men are dropping down from the Mexican side of the border as they prepare to cross into the U.S.
In one picture, sleeping figures lie wrapped in blankets issued by the American Red Cross. Other images make clear they are camped out at the city’s airport.
The pictures show a humanitarian crisis unfolding on American soil. Here a man sleeps beneath an American Red Cross blanket at El Paso’s airport
Travelers passing through the airport in recent weeks have been confronted by this sight as the number of arrivals surged at the end of 2022
Families wait to be processed by U.S. agents after arriving on American soil
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser’s pictures include images of migrants preparing to cross from Mexico
And it shows the pressure on border agents, with long lines of migrants waiting to be processed after being picked up by U.S. officials.
Yet, Biden saw none of that during his whirlwind visit on Sunday — his first to the border since taking office.
He spent most of his time at the Bridge of the Americas entry port, where more than 100,000 people cross back and forth legally to Mexico every week.
He was shown how sniffer dogs root out contraband.
Critics pointed out that he did not meet any migrants. And just before his visit, officials cleared out migrant camps from downtown, where hundreds of newly arrived people were sleeping at night.
Biden was making his first visit to the southern border since becoming president. Here he is seen talking to El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser along the U.S./Mexico border fence in El Paso
In December, this area was filled with migrants sleeping on the streets. But Saturday, the same streets had no sign of the migrants who had camped there after a clearance operation
During his tour, Biden was shown how border officers search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband at the El Paso port of entry on the Bridge of the Americas
Leeser said there was no attempt to sanitize the city for a presidential visit.
‘The areas in which the migrants have gathered have been routinely cleaned by the city as a matter of practice,’ he said.
‘If we hadn’t been doing that, we would have created a health hazard.’
Instead, he said the operation was made possible when the flow of arrivals slowed.
‘The difference wasn’t the president’s visit; the difference was the decrease in numbers of individuals crossing.
‘We’d seen days with crossings as high as 2,500 a day, and we are now seeing 500.
‘The decrease in numbers leads to less crowded areas which optimizes our cleaning efforts.’
El Paso saw some of the heaviest traffic at the end of last year, when migrant numbers surged all along the border.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said Biden ‘reviewed the binder carefully.’ He said he also gave it to a delegation of U.S. Senators who visited a day later
Biden was not taken to areas where migrants are processed. But El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser’s pictures show the crowded facilities where agents handle hundreds of arrivals every day
Arrivals hoped to take advantage of the proposed end of Title 42 — a Trump-era restriction — which ultimately remained in place.
The issue has dogged Biden in office, with Republicans accusing him of running an ‘open border’ policy. In the 12 months before October, Border Patrol encountered 1.7 million migrants trying to make their way into the U.S.
Last week, Biden unveiled a new crackdown on arrivals as part of an effort to prepare for the eventual end of the regulation.
Leeser said he hoped that would bring the number of arrivals down. And he said Biden took a good look at the collection of photographs.
‘The president reviewed the binder carefully and we discussed federal support for our ongoing efforts,’ he said.
‘I can tell you that the president was fully aware the issues, but seeing it through my eyes as I’ve seen it for the last 6 months gave him an added perspective.’