Biden visits border port, wall separating US and Mexico

President Biden on Sunday visited a port of entry and walked along a border wall that separates El Paso, Texas, from Mexico, marking the first time he has visited the southern border during his presidency.

Biden walked along a portion of the border wall that has the city of Juárez, Mexico, on the other side. The rust-colored wall along the dirt path that Biden walked along was about 18 feet high. 

Reporters traveling with the president did not notice any migrants in view of Biden. Walking alongside Biden were Border Patrol officers, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar. 

“They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them,” Biden told reporters when asked what he’s learned at the border. He also said he hasn’t yet read the letter that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) gave him upon arrival in El Paso. The letter blasted the president’s border visit as “two years too late.”

Prior to the stop at the border wall, the president visited with Customs and Border Protection officers at the Bridge of the Americas port. The port is one of the busiest ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The officers showed Biden their operations at the border, including how a yellow lab could find a suitcase in a trunk and how a chocolate lab could find a package in the backseat of a truck. Officers also showed the president a handheld scanning device and a U-shaped scanner that moved around an 18-wheeler truck to show the capability to scan inside for people being smuggled. 

Additionally, they showed him machines that help officers detect narcotics inside parts of a car like a gas tank or a radiator and a device that they can stick into the pipe of a car to see into the gas tank. They also pointed to a radiator that is used to carry drugs, as well as a hollowed-out car battery that could be used to smuggle drugs.