Oversight Committee Presses DHS on ‘Sanitizing Border Crisis’ Before Biden’s ‘Photo-Op’

FILE - President Joe Biden walks along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texa
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) requested information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about its “potential involvement in covering up the poor conditions” at the U.S.-Mexico border before President Joe Biden had his “photo-op.”

The committee “is conducting oversight of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) potential involvement in covering up the poor conditions at the southern border in El Paso, Texas to benefit President Biden’s recent three hour photo-op,” the Republican chairman wrote in his letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Oversight chairman was referring to the reports of Biden seeing a “watered-down version of the border crisis” when he made his first border trip earlier this month after nearly two years in office as president.

“For weeks, large encampments of homeless illegal border crossers—released by the Biden Administration—have encamped on the streets of El Paso,” Comer explained. “These encampments were cleared immediately prior to President Biden’s visit to the city on January 8, 2023.”

Ultimately, Comer stated that he wanted to “understand the circumstances surrounding the role DHS played in clearing homeless illegal border crossers” and having Biden see a “sanitized” border instead of allowing him to witness the “chaotic crisis that plagues border communities every day.”

With the letter, the Oversight Committee is requesting all of the documents and communications that DHS has regarding the “plans to relocate and remove inconveniently positioned illegal aliens from sites in El Paso” before Biden’s arrival.

As Breitbart News wrote earlier this month, after Biden’s visit, he tweeted out an image of his first-ever border visit that featured part of the “wall,” he promised during his presidential campaign he would “not [build] another foot,” a reversal of a former President Donald Trump’s plans to build a secure border wall. The report noted:

As soon as he took office, Biden halted construction of the high bollard fencing that Trump had been building along the wall — though the Biden administration later quietly filled in some gaps that had been left behind.

Yet with thousands of migrants pouring across the border daily, and millions entering the U.S., often illegally, since he took office, Biden was under pressure to visit the border for the first time in a half century of politics.

Biden’s photo-up also showed him surrounded by multiple Border Patrol agents, which he clearly used as props. After their being exonerated, the president has also refused to apologize for falsely claiming Border Patrol agents were using whips to beat Haitian migrants.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

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