President Joe Biden welcomed Mariah Carey and her 12-year-old twins to the White House last week, giving the president a break from the headaches of the refugee crisis.
The 54-year-old singer posted the photos on her Instagram page on Wednesday – it turns out she has split from her boyfriend of seven years, Bryan Tanaka.
“Last week I had the pleasure of meeting President Biden and Vice President Harris at the White House to ring in the holiday season!” she wrote, sharing photos of her and the twins looking at the decorations.
“While we were there we were able to check out all the festive decorations and spread some joy!”
The twins, son Moroccan and daughter Monroe, were born during her marriage to Nick Cannon (2008–16).
Carey poses with Biden as well as Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff.
The visit comes as thousands of migrants stream across the southern border and cities struggle to cope with the influx. Calls from heads of state and government for help from Washington to deal with the crisis fell on deaf ears.
Mariah Carey is seen with President Joe Biden in a photo posted to her Instagram account on Wednesday
The President speaks with Carey's daughter Monroe and his son Moroccan. The 12-year-old's father is Carey's ex-husband Nick Cannon
During the visit, Carey is also seen chatting with Harris, 59, on the sofa.
But while the celebratory gathering was taking place, Biden's team was struggling to deal with the crisis at the southern border.
Records of daily migrant “encounters” by Border Patrol agents have been shattered, with 12,000 in one day.
Mayors in cities like New York and Chicago are pleading with the federal government for help in dealing with the influx as border state governors fly migrants by bus and planes away from their country and north to Democratic-controlled areas.
It emerged Wednesday that hundreds of immigrants are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona with only a handful of officers available to process them.
Most migrants cross the border and immediately turn themselves in to officials so they can apply for asylum and remain in the U.S. during processing.
Photos and videos from Lukeville, Arizona – filmed by Bill Melugin and Fox News NewsNation Border correspondent Ali Bradley – shows hundreds of new arrivals walking along the wall with backpacks and their meager possessions.
They calmly stroll to a processing center and wait in single file for officials to examine them and hand them papers for temporary residency.
Carey and her twins pose next to one of the White House Christmas trees
The singer and her children visited the White House last week
Carey also attended Congress and was photographed next to the Capitol decorations
The singer paid a visit to Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff
Carey and Harris are deep in conversation while their daughter Monroe and son Moroccan listen
Hundreds of illegal immigrants here in Lukeville, Arizona are now marching toward an outdoor processing area set up by the Border Patrol. More than 500 came through a breach in the border wall hours ago. There are only a handful of agents here who can deal with this huge group as BP remains overloaded. pic.twitter.com/XNPPZVyxdX
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 20, 2023
Immigrants line up to be processed after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Lukeville, Arizona
Photos and videos from Lukeville, Arizona, show hundreds of newcomers carrying backpacks and their meager possessions walking along the wall
Genuine asylum seekers can seek protection in the United States, but the legality of spontaneously crossing the border outside a designated entry point is unclear.
Most migrants came from Mexico and other parts of Latin America, but others came from as far away as Afghanistan and India.
One of a group of Indian immigrants told reporters he entered the U.S. to avoid “risk of life,” but others said they were just coming for work.
Many are being released immediately or moved to cities like nearby Tucson, but southern states have also loaded tens of thousands onto buses and sent them to sanctuary cities in northern states like Chicago and New York.
There were 130,000 attempts to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in the first 17 days of November, and there have been at least 167,000 so far in December.
At another hotspot, Eagle Pass in Texas, 14,000 migrants streamed Tuesday near a town where just 30,000 Texans live.
Asylum seekers stand at the border wall near Lukeville waiting to surrender to border officials
The authorities are so overloaded that many have to sit on the floor for hours
Border guards push hundreds of migrants into lines at a processing center
A long line snakes across the gravel at the Lukeville processing center after hundreds of migrants crossed the border
Publicly available figures from the Department of Homeland Security show that border agents processed about 188,778 border crossings in October – a decrease of 14 percent from September. The DHS declined to comment on the numbers.
Eagle Pass has only 58 uniformed police officers, and many of them also help the Border Patrol deal with the crowds.
Border Patrol agents normally stationed at road checkpoints leading into the U.S. were also redirected to assist in Eagle Pass.
Police officials fear that drug cartels will take advantage of the situation to smuggle both people and drugs across the border in the chaos.
“It's an absolute collapse of the border,” said Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a retired border agent and top lawyer in neighboring Terrell County.
“Increasing the number of escape attempts increases the chance for cartels to successfully smuggle in drugs.”
“It's a wide open border. 'Come as you wish.'