Will the US-Mexico Border Crisis Ever Be Solved?

Photography Manager: Brendan Flaherty

On Sunday, March 12th, hundreds of migrants from various countries of origin tried to enter the US through the US-Mexico border.

According to The Texas Tribune, this mad dash to the US-Mexico border was sparked by a social media rumor saying it had been temporarily opened.

Video recordings and photos taken during the event show a myriad of people rushing through the El Paso entry point.

People were seen rushing through the tight bridge to get to the other side in hopes that they could find, at least, some answers as to when they might be able to get into the US.

The large crowd amassed and tried to enter the States after the rumor of the border opening circulated. The group was eventually met with pushback from border patrol, deploying barbed wire and barricades to slow their movement.

The migrants were obviously frustrated with this as the rumor turned out to be false, and lost hope that they could cross that day.

They tried to force their way past the barricades and could even be seen trying to plead to the border patrol guards.

The crowd would return to the Mexican side of the border but would regroup to start a protest. After much protesting and a bit of resistance, the group eventually faded away, and the Paso del Norte Bridge linking the two countries reopened around 6.

According to msn.com, potential migrants have become tired of the failures in the appointment scheduling app to cross the border legally. There have been consistent failures in the app, and people have grown tired of waiting.

As explained by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in a recent message, the app is supposed to work as a way to increase the security of our borders and provide a method for legitimate and legal travel from one country to another.

The broken app has caused much frustration. It could very well have been one of the reasons why everyone was in such a hurry to cross the border upon hearing that it was open.

The app, according to a msn.com interview with the migrant mob, is completely overrun with bugs and glitches due to consistently high traffic on the app.

Though the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has put out a statement saying that “recent app updates will simplify and speed up the process,” according to msn.com.

Whether or not these changes actually help, however, has yet to be seen.

The people who were gathered at the border consisted of citizens from mostly Venezuela and a few other countries.

Now, because of the app’s delays, people are stuck in the area between Mexico and the US in hopes to enter the United States to live a better life.

This is yet another manifestation of the ever-prevalent crisis that still affects migrants who seek to enter the United States.

This problem has been a “part of the discussion” now for a long time, being resurfaced during the Trump Administration. Trump sought to wall off the US-Mexico border to try and completely stop / severely limit immigration.

According to FactCheck.org, the true blame for the border crisis has been argued over for years now and it could be said that both sides are partly to blame.

Of course, now, after the recent migrant crossing attempt, Republicans are again blaming the Biden Administration for their poor handling of the border crisis.

However, this crisis is not a new one; it has been a prevalent problem since 2014 and has “plagued each administration since then.”

Since 2003 seemingly, there has been a surge of children trying to cross the border by themselves. All from different backgrounds and origins, trying to cross the border for different reasons.

The fact remains, however, after all is said and done, that there are too many people trying to cross the border at once.

The question for the matter is will President Biden acknowledge the crisis, and if so, will he make any moves to correct this ongoing problem?