In the lead-up to an upcoming summit in Mexico, President Joe Biden laid out in a press conference a new element in the administration’s immigration/border policy, as we reported on Thursday. For example, one of those solutions involves, as my colleague Nick Arama wrote,

allowing in 30,000 applicants a month from four countries — Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua — who will be able to come in and work legally for up to two years. To qualify, applicants must apply from their home countries, pass a background check and prove they have a financial supporter in the U.S.

Also, earlier in the week, hazy details started to filter out on a possible Biden visit to the U.S.-Mexico border — the first trip he has ever made there as a politician. A clearer outline of his visit was revealed by the White House in the past 24 hours, including the fact that he would be stopping in El Paso Sunday. Which brings us to Friday when, as my colleague Sister Toldjah wrote, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas assured assembled reporters that Biden is “going to see the border not for the first time in his public service career.” S.T. points out that the claim isn’t new; Pres. Biden has tried to use it before, when pressed on his attention to border security.

Here’s the problem with Biden’s claim:

The closest he’s ever come to visiting the border was in October 2008. As the Washington Post explained in a fact check of sorts after the town hall, Biden’s “visit” was actually a mere drive-by as he was on his way to a campaign stop in New Mexico:

Now, formerly Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) is reacting with skepticism to what’s in the new Biden administration border policy, in a new interview with the local Fox Phoenix affiliate, KSAZ. Sinema told reporter Troy Hayden:

The proof is in the pudding. The president announced some short term actions to take, while Title 42 is extended, and they might be helpful. Depends on if they implement it all and how it’s implemented.

Sinema adds that she and Sens. Cornyn (R-Texas) and Tillis (R-NC) “are leading a congressional delegation to El Paso and Yuma next week. We’re going to show our colleagues from other parts of the country how broken the system is, how the patchwork activities that are occurring right now — to try to fix it — aren’t working, and why we need an overhaul.”

It’s almost like someone read Thomas La Duke’s piece on how to get congresscritters to take the border crisis seriously.

Sinema explains that a bill the three senators have sponsored seeks to tighten up “who qualifies” for entrance into the U.S. on the basis of asylum, and expediting their appearance before a judge, so that they don’t have free rein in the country for years. This is a laudable move, since it’s a major problem. Unfortunately, as I’ve pointed out previously, that same legislation includes amnesty for so-called DREAMers.

Sinema is also wrong in her characterization of what the right wants to do about border security; she says we say, “Just build a wall.” As much as my senior senator complains about politicians across the country not listening to what Arizona’s needs are, she could afford to do more listening to others, as well.

You can watch the full interview with Sinema below, via KSAZ: