Senator Bill Cassidy (R., La.) said on Sunday that President Biden’s policies are “entirely” to blame for the influx of migrants crossing the U.S.–Mexico border over the past several weeks.
“Empirically, it’s entirely,” Cassidy said when asked by Fox News Sunday‘s Chris Wallace how much responsibility Biden bears for the crisis. “You can’t help but notice that the administration changes and there is a surge,” Cassidy added.
The senator pointed out that Biden’s coordinator for the southern border, Roberta Jacobson, botched a Spanish message for potential migrants during a press conference on Thursday. While urging migrants in English not to attempt the journey, Jacobson mistakenly said in Spanish, “la frontera no está cerrada,” which means “the border is not closed.” Jacobson corrected herself later in the same press conference.
“I can tell you, the Spanish version is being heard, not the English,” Cassidy said.
There were 9,487 unaccompanied minors detained by U.S. Border Patrol in the month of February, a 171 percent increase from the same month in 2020. The Biden administration has instructed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help process the influx of unaccompanied children, with facilities managed by the Border Patrol and Department of Health and Human Services stretched to near-capacity levels.
The Biden administration has advocated an immigration overhaul that would a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S., and has already reversed some Trump-era restrictions. Biden is eliminating the “Remain in Mexico” policy that ordered asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were processed in the U.S., and the administration has reinstituted “catch-and-release” policies, in which border agents release migrants into U.S. border towns to await processing.
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