As the other poster said, we had a chance to improve things. Reps let it go because Trump said so.

I will point out you're conflating the two motivations, however. Back when I was young, illegal immigration was mostly people sneaking across the border to find work in the agriculture sector. The farmers didn't mind because they could pay them a lot less, and the "illegals" couldn't really complain without being deported. Today, that is not the prime motivator. As you know, they are -under present law- legally seeking asylum. Without looking up the numbers, I think most of them are not Mexican, either. Central and South Americans, and Chinese, are much more dominant. Also, last I knew, there were a lot of Russians and Ukrainians fleeing the war over there (though that may have petered-out...there was a surge in the months after the initial invasion).

So, no. They are not here to pick vegetables. They are likely fleeing an autocratic regime. Affluency is no guarantee of not being shot in an autocratic regime. You just have to p-o the leader, and you can be disappeared. Is there something more to it? Maybe. It would be nice if we had a law that approved additional resources to processing these folks, and gave BP the ability to clamp-down if the flow gets excessive...