If you were following the news this weekend you probably heard that President Joe Biden made his first visit to the southern border of his presidency on Sunday. Some of the more gullible among us may have thought that this was a good, albeit long-overdue decision. And Uncle Joe was heading for El Paso, arguably one of the hardest hit sectors on the entire border. If Biden could see the chaos, death and destruction that his open border policies have created along the border, perhaps he might change course, right? Well, you can forget about that because Biden’s handlers weren’t about to let a bad photo op ruin their fantasies. In advance of the President’s arrival, the Border Patrol was dispatched to “clean up” El Paso, rounding up the homeless migrants and loading them on buses. The streets were swept clean of refuse. As our colleague Sarah Arnold described it at Townhall, Biden and (more importantly) the media were going to be shown “a sanitized version of the southern border.”

The Biden Administration is being criticized for ordering local and state authorities to clean up the streets and arrest illegal migrants in El Paso, Texas just in time for President Joe Biden’s visit.

The move seems to be in an attempt to paint a much different picture than what is happening at the southern border.

According to NBC News, El Paso Sector Border Patrol agents and local police officers cleared the streets so that when media outlets arrive for Biden’s first-ever visit, it will look like a crisis isn’t happening at all.

The union representing the Border Patrol described the plan in a less than charitable but still hilarious way.

El Paso being cleaned up as if nothing unusual ever happened there. Just in time for Biden's "visit to the border".

We suggest just landing in Des Moines, Iowa and telling him it's El Paso. He'll never know the difference.

— Border Patrol Union – NBPC (@BPUnion) January 6, 2023

Mark Levin had some of the “before and after” pictures of El Paso, along with the observation that this sort of dog and pony show, put on for the benefit of the media, is precisely what dictators do to keep the peasants from revolting.

This is what dictatorships dohttps://t.co/de6aRrBqXx

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) January 8, 2023

After El Paso had spent months on end looking like a war zone, the Border Patrol managed to clean up the entire town in just two days. Six buses full of migrants were seen being loaded up and headed toward the Mexican border, presumably to dump all of the people back there. By the time the White House convoy arrived, the place looked like just another day in any small American city.

Nobody from the mainstream press appeared to be interested in asking the obvious question. If the Border Patrol was able to empty the city of migrants and ship them back to Mexico in just 48 hours, why haven’t they been doing that for the last two years? And what happened to all of Biden’s compassion for the poor, suffering migrants looking for a fresh start in America?

That went out the window as well. It should now be more than obvious that those people are nothing but props in Biden’s expected reelection bid. Governor Greg Abbott, who delivered a stern letter to Joe Biden upon his arrival, wasn’t being fooled by any of this.

El Paso rushes to remove illegal immigrants and migrant camps that are crowding downtown before Biden arrives.

Predictable.

Biden does not want America to see the chaos that he has caused on the border.

This is just a photo op and a game of pretend.https://t.co/4KJqorJjrP

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 7, 2023

Don’t be fooled by any of Joe Biden’s recent claims about making changes and getting tough on illegal immigrants. The collapse we’ve witnessed on the southern border was intentional. Biden and the progressives in Washington wanted to flood the country will millions of illegals who they assume will all become loyal Democratic Party voters once they’re all granted amnesty and citizenship. And Team Biden clearly doesn’t give a damn about the endless explosion of human trafficking and fentanyl smuggling that came along with them. The Mexican drug cartels control the border from the other side right now and nobody is doing a thing about it.