President Joe Biden predicted Tuesday that the U.S.-Mexico border would be “chaotic for a while" as pandemic-related restrictions end.
Biden said he spoke with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for roughly an hour on Tuesday to discuss the border.
The restrictions have been in place since 2020 and allowed U.S. officials to quickly return migrants over the border. They are ending later this week and the U.S. is putting into place a set of new policies that will clamp down on illegal crossings while offering migrants a legal path to the United States if they apply online, have a sponsor and pass background checks.
Biden said his administration was working to make the change orderly. “But it remains to be seen," he told reporters. "It's going to be chaotic for a while.”
About 550 U.S. active duty troops have begun arriving along the U.S.-Mexico border in the first group of military support ahead of an expected increase of migrants, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday.
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