White House press secretary Jen Psaki used the phrase “border crisis” during the briefing on Thursday – a remarkable choice of words after the government avoided describing the situation in this way.
Later, she seemed to back off when reporters asked if her phrase indicated a change in the way the White House viewed the situation. She again used the phrase “challenges at the border” and said there was no change in management messages.
THE WORD THAT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL NOT USE WHEN DESCRIBING THE BORDER? CRISIS
During a press conference at the White House on Thursday, Psaki was asked about loaning doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico and Canada.
“I can confirm that we have 7 million releasable doses of AstraZeneca,” said Psaki, adding that “2.5 million of these, we are working to finalize plans to lend them to Mexico and 1.5 million to Canada.”
During a shuttling over vaccine doses, Psaki said there were “expectations set out, unrelated to any vaccine doses or requests for them, that they would be partners in dealing with the crisis at the border.
“And there have been many unrelated requests for doses of these vaccines … every relationship is multilayered,” said Psaki, adding that “there is rarely just one problem” when working with other countries. “This is certainly not the case in Mexico or any country in the world.”
Psaki was then asked if she intended to call it a “border crisis”.
She replied quickly: “Challenges at the border.”
When asked if her comments reflected changes in the administration’s messages about the situation at the border, she said, “No.”
The United States is facing what the Biden government admits is an “overwhelming” number of migrants on the southern border as they struggle to build new facilities to keep migrant children – but stubbornly refuse to describe the situation as a “crisis”.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s a huge challenge,” said Psaki last week, before saying, “We don’t feel the need to, you know, play with what it’s called.”
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 migrant encounters in February.
Psaki said last week of 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.”
And earlier this month, Biden said “no” when asked about a crisis.
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.
And although they don’t 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 when announcing the border numbers.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who vehemently denied the existence of a crisis, sent an email last week to the DHS team asking them to volunteer to help CBP at the border in the midst of 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.”
Adam Shaw and Griff Jenkins of Fox News contributed to this report.