White House says no deal with border countries, reverses original rhetoric

Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki said the U.S. had reached agreements with Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras on refugee issues, and on Friday, April 16, Psaki reversed that statement and said the Biden administration had not reached formal agreements with the three countries.

Pusaki said earlier this week that agreements with the three countries had been reached in the past few weeks. She told reporters at the time, “There have been a series of bilateral discussions between our leadership and the regional governments of Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. Through those discussions, there was a commitment to strengthen border security.”

But on Friday Psaki told reporters again, “We never described it as a formal declaration or agreement, but rather that they (the three border countries) took other steps to increase border personnel.”

Tyler Moran, special assistant for immigration at the U.S. Policy Board, said on MSNBC that day Friday that the administration “secured an agreement for them to put more troops on their own border. Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala all agreed to do that.” But State Department officials also contradicted Moran’s rhetoric. A State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon that the U.S. has not reached any agreement with the three border countries.

The Guatemalan government also recently told nationals that they had not signed any documents with the U.S. The country had sent 1,500 men to its border in January; Mexican officials said in late March that they were slightly increasing the number of troops on its border; and Honduran officials said the country had not committed to putting in more soldiers to disrupt the migrants.

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told the Free Beacon that the White House needs to come clean on the matter. “It’s a series of bold-faced lies that the Biden administration has deliberately told untruths that affect foreign policy. To its credit, it has allowed these countries to make a unilateral effort to respond to the crisis that Biden created for them.”