The current surge of migrants at the border underscores the uncomfortable realities of President Joe Biden's new immigration policies. A migrant population that moves en masse, largely based on rumors, was certain to surge northward as soon as word got out that an immigrant-friendly administration was now in charge. And congressional Republicans predictably are primed to exploit this surge to maximum advantage as a way to make Biden appear weak and incompetent.

With immigration certain to be a wedge issue in next year's congressional elections, Biden cannot afford any missteps. Which means he must execute his policy changes at a measured pace, working to ease the harsh conditions imposed during the Trump administration while also avoiding any words or actions that could be interpreted by migrants as an all's-clear signal to rush the border. Biden has an exceedingly intricate needle to thread.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led a 12-member GOP congressional delegation to the border Monday, as if to suggest sudden pangs of Republican concern for the plight of immigrants — particularly children — now being corralled at border-area processing facilities. During the Trump administration, when children were being yanked from their mothers' arms and housed in cage-like enclosures, GOP congressional leaders searched for every way possible to avoid comment on the topic for fear of making President Donald Trump look bad. Now that a Democrat is in the White House, the scales have fallen from their eyes.

"I came down here because I heard of the crisis. It's more than a crisis, this is a human heartbreak," McCarthy told reporters at a stop in El Paso, Texas. "The sad part about all this, didn't have to happen. This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration. There's no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis."

Actually, there is another way to describe it: Exploiting human suffering for selfish political gain. Consider the comments to National Public Radio Tuesday by Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Florida, a member of McCarthy's delegation who correctly noted that the severe shortage of immigration judges to adjudicate pending asylum cases is a major reason why the immigrant-detention crisis exists.

Gimenez also correctly noted that "hundreds" of immigration judges are needed to handle the case backlog. As of January, the Justice Department says, 1.28 million cases were still pending — a jump from 460,000 pending cases when Trump took office in 2016. Biden, with fewer than 60 days in office, inherited an immigration court system staffed by a mere 529 judges, which means each judge must handle an average of 2,420 cases.

This "Biden border crisis" has been years in the making. Republicans are cynically mimicking concern, but their goal is hardly to find solutions. It's to divert voters' attention from the problem they dumped on Biden's doorstep.

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