Three years into his presidency, President Biden — after months of being hounded by his Republican opponents over the escalating immigration crisis on the border — will finally see first-hand the chaos on the ground.

Mr. Biden will visit a border crossing at El Paso, Texas Sunday “to assess border enforcement operations, meet with the local officials, and community leaders,” so they can “tell me what they need that they don’t have,” he said. 

Last year, Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 2.7 million migrants at the southern border — a record number, and a 41 percent increase from 2021. The figure is five times the 2020 total number. As recently as a month ago, Mr. Biden said he did not need to visit the border because he had “more important things” to do.

In a Thursday press conference, Mr. Biden blamed Republicans for the migration crisis and said they were not being “serious about this at all.” After hearing what officials conclude about the situation at the border, Mr. Biden said he will try to “persuade” his Republican colleagues “that they should do something.”

The El Paso stopover is part of the president’s trip to Mexico City for the North American Leaders’ Summit. He will spend Monday and Tuesday talking with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts about migration, climate change, drug trafficking, and pandemic recovery. 

On Thursday Mr. Biden announced that the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has agreed to take in migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti who attempt to cross the border illegally. In exchange, America would take in 30,000 pre-approved migrants from these countries monthly. An existing program already takes in 24,000 Venezuelan migrants.

Migrants from the four countries who wish to enter America must file an application with Customs and Border Protection through a smartphone application, CBP One. In addition, they must show proof of an eligible sponsor and pass a background check. If admitted, migrants will be allowed to legally live and work in America for two years.

Mr. Biden said that anyone from Cuba, Nicaragua, or Haiti who has “agreed to begin a journey to America,” should “stay where they are and apply legally from there.”

“Starting today if you don’t apply through the legal process you will not be eligible for this new parole program,” Mr. Biden said Thursday.

Mexico is also facing a migration challenge. According to the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees, the number of asylum seekers in Mexico soared to 118,478 in 2022, from 2,134 in 2014. 

In addition, Mexican shelters for migrants are struggling to accommodate the throngs of people yearning to make the journey to America. Shelters at the border city of Ciudad Juarez are using all of their resources to assist almost twice as many migrants than they are capable of handling.

This week’s summit will also focus on drug trafficking on the border and security. On Thursday Mexican security forces captured Ovidio Guzman, a drug trafficker wanted by America and son of former cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. 

“This is a significant blow to the Sinaloa cartel and a major victory for the rule of law,” the Drug Enforcement Administration’s former Chief of International Operations, Mike Vigil, told the Associated Press. “It will not, however, impede the flow of drugs into the U.S. Hopefully, Mexico will extradite him to the U.S.” 

Despite the record number of migrants arriving at the border,  President Biden has yet to articulate a strategy to replace the Trump-era policy that allows for the expulsion of asylum seekers at the southern border, known as Title 42.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that Title 42 will be maintained for now. Yet, immigration analysts suggest that it won’t be around for long. The policy was devised during the pandemic to bar entry to migrants on public health grounds, yet the health crisis is widely seen as over.

In 2022, about 1.1 million migrants were expelled under Title 42, according to data from Customs and Border Protection. On Thursday Mr. Biden suggested he would replace it with Title Eight, a rule that toughens penalties on anyone crossing the border illegally.