DALLAS — Both Republicans and Democrats alike have strongly criticized President Joe Biden for his handling of the Haitian migrant surge in Del Rio, Texas, this past week, including former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke. 

In a scathing opinion column for El Paso Matters, the former congressman said the Biden Administration should have predicted the surge and criticized its slow response to help migrants as well as the border cities in Texas. 

“We have diplomatic missions in each of these countries and an unrivaled global intelligence network,” O’Rourke said. “Immigration and undocumented border crossings have been a consistently pressing challenge for years. How could we not see this coming?”

In the column, O’Rourke noted Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, the end of a labor surge in Brazil for the 2016 Olympics, the high rate of COVID-19 and the lack of stability in Haiti as reasons many people migrated to the United States. 

He also slammed the Biden Administration for keeping a Trump-era policy, Title 42, in place. The policy prohibits migrants from entering the U.S. and forcing them to stay in Mexico while seeking asylum. 

“So antithetical to our values and our common humanity, that the administration’s own envoy to Haiti resigned in disgust, writing that we shouldn’t be sending these refugees back to ‘a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life’,” O’Rourke said.

After images of border patrol agents chasing migrants on horses surfaced this week, Biden took responsibility for the situation and vowed that there would be consequences for the agents involved, pending an investigation being carried out by the Department of Homeland Security.

"It's an embarrassment, but it's beyond an embarrassment," Biden said. "It's dangerous. It's wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It's simply not who we are."

Officials said as of Friday, the nearly 15,000 migrants gathered under the Del Rio International Bridge have been cleared from the camp. According to the DHS, nearly 8,000 have voluntarily opted to return to Mexico, and just over 5,000 are currently being adjudicated by DHS. Another 12,400 migrants were moved to various shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border to have their case heard by an immigration judge.

O’Rourke narrowly lost his campaign for U.S. Senate against Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 and briefly launched a campaign to be the Democratic nominee for president. He is also considering a run for Texas governor in 2022.