Joe Biden described the situation at the border a “crisis” Saturday, after months of his administration adamantly refusing to use that word to describe the overwhelming numbers of migrant children and families that have poured over the border in response to Biden’s abrupt reversal of many of President Trump’s border and immigration polices.
Biden briefly spoke to reporters after playing a round of golf at the Wilmington Country Club in Delaware. Biden came under heavy criticism from progressives on Friday after the administration announced it would be leaving in place President Trump’s refugee cap of 15,000. It was later announced the cap would be revised upward in May.
Biden, in response to a question about the refugee cap, “We’re gonna increase the number. The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are gonna increase the number.”
Pool video clip posted by the RNC:
Video from last month of White House Press Secretary arguing the border crisis is not a crisis.
Psaki’s statement Friday after Biden caved to the progressive mob on refugees:
The President’s directive today has been the subject of some confusion. Last week, he sent to Congress his budget for the fiscal year starting in October 2021, which honors his commitment. For the past few weeks, he has been consulting with his advisors to determine what number of refugees could realistically be admitted to the United States between now and October 1. Given the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited, and burdens on the Office of Refugee Resettlement, his initial goal of 62,500 seems unlikely.
While finalizing that determination, the President was urged to take immediate action to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from many key regions, to enable flights from those regions to begin within days; today’s order did that. With that done, we expect the President to set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15.
As of Friday there were 23,000 migrant children in US custody.
There were 22,300 unaccompanied migrant children in US custody this morning.
HHS is doing a better job of releasing children, placing 374 with relatives yesterday.
2,500 unaccompanied children are still in ill-suited and often overcrowded Border Patrol tents, stations. pic.twitter.com/zNwwTUSMzh
— Camilo Montoya-Galvez (@camiloreports) April 16, 2021