The Biden government is facing what it admits is an “overwhelming” number of migrants on the southern border as it struggles to build new facilities to keep migrant children – but it stubbornly refuses to describe the situation as a “crisis”.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s a huge challenge,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday, before saying, “We don’t feel the need to, you know, play with what it’s called. “
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Although the numbers have increased at the border for months, especially for unaccompanied children (UACs) and family units, they have increased since President Biden took office. The number of UACs in custody has tripled in recent weeks, while there were more than 100,000 encounters with migrants in February.
Critics blame the dramatic liberalization of immigration policy and the reversal of Trump-era border protections for encouraging the flow and removing the tools that allow migrants to be kept out or returned to their countries of origin.
The Biden government said it was moving to replace the previous government’s “cruelty” with a more “human” system and warned that it would take time. But he refused to acknowledge that there is indeed a “crisis” – preferring to describe it as a “challenge”.
“I think the – the answer is no. I think there is a challenge at the border that we are managing and we have our resources dedicated to managing it,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week.
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Psaki said earlier this week about a “crisis”: “I don’t think we need to sit here and put new labels on what we already broadcast is a challenge, what we broadcast is a priority for the president.”
Last week, Biden said “no” when he asked the same question.
It is a stark contrast to 2019, when President Trump was eager to label that year’s rise in migrants as a crisis, while he pushed for stronger measures at the border.
“This is a humanitarian crisis – a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul,” Trump said in January 2019, months before the increase reached its peak.
So far, in 2021, the numbers have been greater than in 2019, indicating that the crisis or “challenge” may be significantly greater this year, and the government has made moves to indicate that it recognizes this. It opened migrant centers to deal with family units and UACs, and examined a military base in Virginia and other locations to house migrant children.
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And although they do not call it a crisis, the authorities are still warning about the situation.
“We continue to struggle with the number of individuals in our custody, especially in a pandemic,” CBP acting commissioner Troy Miller said this week in announcing the border numbers.
Mayorkas, who last week vehemently denied there was a crisis, this week sent an email to the DHS team urging them to volunteer to help CBP at the border amid what he described as “overwhelming” numbers.
“Today, I activated the Voluntary Force to support Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as they face increased migration along the southwestern border,” Mayorkas said in an email to the team, seen by Fox News.
“You have probably seen the news about the overwhelming number of migrants seeking access to this country along the southwestern border,” he said. “President Biden and I are committed to ensuring that our nation has a safe, orderly and humane immigration system, while continuing to balance all other critical DHS missions.”
But the authorities continued with answers that were sometimes acrobatic in response to questions about whether there was a crisis at the border.
“You know, I think … I’m not trying to be cute here, but I think the fact of the matter is: we have to do what we do regardless of what someone calls the situation,” Roberta Jacobson, coordinator for the southern border, said in a press conference on Wednesday.
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“And the fact is that we are all focused on improving the situation, on moving to a more humane and efficient system. And whatever you call it, it wouldn’t change what we’re doing because we have an urgent need, from the president down, to fix our system and ensure that we better deal with the hopes and dreams of these migrants in their country of origin, ”she said.
Biden was asked at a hardware store again this week by reporters if there was a crisis at the border. He did not respond and reporters were expelled by his team.
“Come on, press, let’s go,” said an aide.