Wednesday, September 22, 2021
No Way Out
Sometimes a leader is presented with impossible situations in which there are no good solutions. How the executive addresses them reveals the character of the individual. This is the situation facing President Biden now. He is knee-deep in an immigration crisis at the Del Rio Bridge in south Texas. An estimated 9,000 predominantly Haitian migrants are camped there in squalid conditions overwhelming the Border Patrol tasked with processing them. The refugees have nowhere to go. Haiti is a ruin from hurricanes and earthquakes. The US won't accommodate them because they are the tip of a wedge of tens of thousands of migrants from around the world who want into "the promised land." Biden has chosen to repatriate Haitians in the face of blistering criticism from his own party. Republicans meanwhile are laying the whole immigration catastrophe firmly at Biden's door. The public is outraged over mishandling of migrants by Border Patrol agents on horseback. The Border Patrol union is scathing in its criticism of the President and the poor planning involved. This is a time when a leader might like to step down but can't. The mess won't fix itself. It takes patient work under the greatest pressure. No one would blame Biden for lashing out but his reputation is at stake and bitter words won't help it. There is no way out.
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