White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (D-MN).
U.S. President Joe Biden‘s lax immigration policy has sparked a border crisis, with even some Democratic lawmakers strongly opposing it and the Mexican president expressing concern.
According to Reuters, Mexican President Lopez (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) fears that the Biden Administration is inciting illegal immigration to the United States and creating business for organized crime gangs.
A day after a March 1 video conference with Biden, Lopez said people in the Central American country see Biden as the “immigration president” and that so many immigrants believe they will reach the United States.
On Thursday (11), reporters pressed White House press secretary Jen Psaki at a news conference on the border crisis triggered by Biden’s immigration policies.
“Mexican President Lopez said that people coming into the United States now see Biden – President Biden – as the immigration president.” Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy said, “Does the White House see that as a compliment?”
Psaki said she had not heard the phrase and asked for context. After Doocy read the rest of the remarks made by Lopez, Psaki claimed that “the vast, vast majority of people who come to our border are turned away.”
However, even a reporter for left-media CNN pressed Psaki on Biden’s border crisis and asked specifically why Biden wouldn’t call it a crisis. “There are now more than 3,700 children in facilities that resemble Border Patrol prisons, and they spend an average of four days and more than 100 hours in those facilities. These facilities are like prisons, they’re not for children, so how can you say this is not a crisis?”
NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker also asked a question about Biden’s border crisis.
“I want to ask one more Time on the border issue to follow up on the Mexican president’s comments. Does his comment that the surge in unaccompanied child migrants is because they think Biden is the immigration president say anything about how the president is handling the situation?”
Psaki argued, “It’s our policy because we feel it’s humane and it’s moral.” She added that the Biden administration is finding ways to speed up getting child migrants from border facilities to shelters, which is fraught with challenges, but “we’re still trying to find ways” to speed up the immigration system.
In February, arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a 15-year monthly high. A Mexican official familiar with the dynamics of immigration told Reuters that organized crime groups have been changing their tactics since the day Biden took office and now have an “unprecedented” level of sophistication.
“Immigration has become a commodity,” the official said, adding that migrants are now as valuable to gangs as drugs. “But if a bag of drugs is dropped in the ocean, it’s lost and gone. But once the immigrants are lost, we are now talking about people.”
Reuters reported that, according to internal assessments, Mexican gangs are diversifying their smuggling methods in the face of U.S. “immigration incentives,” including briefing clients on the latest immigration rules, using tricks to hoodwink authorities, and disguising smuggling as a travel agency activity.
To facilitate border crossings, smugglers advise their Central American clients to complain to authorities that they are victims of extortion or that they face death threats from street gangs. As in previous years, they tell migrants to take their children with them so that it is easier to apply for asylum.
Smugglers tell immigrants that the border will be open for children, and the number of minors at the border is now surging. As the weather warms, the U.S.-Mexico border could face even more migrants.
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