..but President is oblivious to their presence after illegal immigrants are cleared from the path of his three-hour Texas visit
- About 200 migrants waited at the border fence after crossing on to U.S. soil
- They cheered as Biden’s motorcade raced past on Sunday afternoon
- It was an ironic twist to such a carefully stage-managed visit to El Paso
- The president probably never knew he came within a few dozen feet of them
President Joe Biden came closer than he ever realized to hundreds of illegal migrants who had just set foot on American soil during his border trip on Sunday.
As his presidential motorcade sped along closed roads from one carefully stage-managed facility visit to another, he came within a few dozen feet of migrants lining up on the wrong side of the border fence.
They sent up a cheer as Biden’s convoy race past above them even though he would almost certainly have been oblivious to their presence.
The episode echoes Republican criticism that the visit was little more than a photo op at the border.
And it comes amid claims that El Paso — the epicenter of a migrant surge last month — had been cleaned up before Biden’s visit.
In all the president spent three hours on the ground near the border, meeting officers and charities that help migrants.
He was not seen meeting any migrants, however.
After visiting the busy port of entry on the Bridge of the Americas, connecting El Paso to the Mexican city of Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Biden was driven to his next stop at the El Paso County Migrant Services Center.
The convoy of police vehicles, SUVs and buses carrying staff, Secret Service agents and journalists traveled at high speeds along roads that were closed to regular traffic.
The 21-minute journey took them past the well-fortified border, where Texas National Guard troops have been deployed to stem the flow of migrants.
But the vehicles were clearly visible to migrants on the other side of the border fence.
Some 200 people had just made the crossing from Mexican territory, across the muddy water of the Rio Grande, and had gathered on U.S. soil at a gate in the fence as they waited for Border Patrol to let them through.