On Texas border, a new migrant rush under Biden
- Biden's pledge of a more humane approach has helped spark a new rush to the border -- and is threatening to become a huge political liability at home.
BROWNSVILLE: In a gusty, open-air bus depot in Brownsville, Texas, Febe Carillo-Ramos speaks easily after a journey of hundreds of miles from her home in Guatemala: for the first time in 20 days on the road, she can now move without worry.
Her three-year-old son Wuermer on her lap, she shows a document given to her the day before by the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) that allows them to travel to Houston where her husband is, to settle and work, without immediate threat of deportation.
"They told me that with these papers I can go anywhere," the 29-year-old says.
It's the new normal for migrant families under President Joe Biden, after the harsh "zero tolerance" approach of Donald Trump dashed the dreams of hundreds of thousands hoping to escape endemic poverty and violence in Central America.
Biden's pledge of a more humane approach has helped spark a new rush to the border -- and is threatening to become a huge political liability at home.
Republicans are accusing him of opening the country's doors to illegal border-crossers and sparking a "crisis" on the US-Mexico frontier, marked in Texas by the meandering Rio Grande.
They say Biden's easier approach toward immigrants will exacerbate Covid-19 and let "terrorists" in, as House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy claimed Monday.
The mounting criticism saw Biden tell migrants bluntly: "Don't come over ... Don't leave your town or city or community," during an interview with ABC News on Tuesday.