Report: Biden admin publicly denies border crisis while internally freaking out about rapid influx of migrant children, massive bed shortage



While publicly denying that a crisis is underway at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration appears to be scrambling to contain and manage a massive surge of illegal immigrant children flooding into the country, according to internal documents.

What are the details?

Based on revelations outlined in a White House domestic policy presentation, obtained by Axios, the situation at the southern border is much more dire than the administration is letting on.

The presentation, which consists of nearly 40 slides full of charts and details, reportedly spells out the dimensions of the crisis in stark terms. The Department of Homeland Security projects there will be 117,000 unaccompanied child migrants crossing the southern border this year, an unprecedentedly high number — and there aren't anywhere near enough beds.

During last month alone, 6,000 migrants ages 16 and 17 were caught crossing the border — and that pace is expected to continue, if not increase. Scrambling to keep up with the rapid influx, the administration will apparently need to acquire 20,000 additional beds, according to the presentation.

Also, the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency tasked with handling migrant children, is expected to reach shelter capacity later this month. Axios reported that the agency "is planning to change its coronavirus protocols to make room for an additional 2,000 kids and teens," but that even with the changes, the needs will not be met.

President Biden is scheduled to be briefed on the situation Tuesday afternoon.

What else?

Yet while the Biden administration internally acknowledges the gravity of the matter, officials are not being so forthright with the public.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rejected the notion that the situation was a crisis during a White House press briefing, instead referring to it as "a challenge at the border that we are managing."

Then on Tuesday, when confronted with details outlined in the presentation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki doubled down on Mayorkas' claim.

This comes after an internal email sent last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff Timothy Perry to agency leadership appeared to show immigration authorities in panic mode about the surge of migrants.

"We need to prepare for border surges now," Perry wrote. "We need to begin making changes immediately. We should privilege action over cost considerations; do what is needed, and the department will work on funding afterward."

Report: Biden admin publicly denies border crisis while internally freaking out about rapid influx of migrant children, massive bed shortage



While publicly denying that a crisis is underway at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration appears to be scrambling to contain and manage a massive surge of illegal immigrant children flooding into the country, according to internal documents.

What are the details?

Based on revelations outlined in a White House domestic policy presentation, obtained by Axios, the situation at the southern border is much more dire than the administration is letting on.

The presentation, which consists of nearly 40 slides full of charts and details, reportedly spells out the dimensions of the crisis in stark terms. The Department of Homeland Security projects there will be 117,000 unaccompanied child migrants crossing the southern border this year, an unprecedentedly high number — and there aren't anywhere near enough beds.

During last month alone, 6,000 migrants ages 16 and 17 were caught crossing the border — and that pace is expected to continue, if not increase. Scrambling to keep up with the rapid influx, the administration will apparently need to acquire 20,000 additional beds, according to the presentation.

Also, the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency tasked with handling migrant children, is expected to reach shelter capacity later this month. Axios reported that the agency "is planning to change its coronavirus protocols to make room for an additional 2,000 kids and teens," but that even with the changes, the needs will not be met.

President Biden is scheduled to be briefed on the situation Tuesday afternoon.

What else?

Yet while the Biden administration internally acknowledges the gravity of the matter, officials are not being so forthright with the public.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rejected the notion that the situation was a crisis during a White House press briefing, instead referring to it as "a challenge at the border that we are managing."

Then on Tuesday, when confronted with details outlined in the presentation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki doubled down on Mayorkas' claim.

This comes after an internal email sent last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff Timothy Perry to agency leadership appeared to show immigration authorities in panic mode about the surge of migrants.

"We need to prepare for border surges now," Perry wrote. "We need to begin making changes immediately. We should privilege action over cost considerations; do what is needed, and the department will work on funding afterward."

Biden administration not allowing media inside migrant children facilities, citing COVID concerns



The Biden administration has reportedly closed off media access to migrant children housing facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border, citing coronavirus concerns, the Daily Caller reported on Monday.

In a statement to the news outlet, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency charged with handling migrant children, said, "The Office of Refugee Resettlement is not hosting media tours of unaccompanied children facilities currently due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

"If media tours resume, we will send a media advisory," the spokesperson added.

The news may certainly raise eyebrows, considering the groundswell of criticism leveled at the Biden administration over its decision to reopen a housing facility temporarily activated by the Trump administration in 2019 — a move condemned by leftist immigration activists and Biden himself.

Those on the right were quick to point out the administration's hypocrisy, as were several open-borders activists on the left, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). In response to the news, the progressive lawmaker tweeted, "This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay — no matter the administration or party."

The Biden administration has defended its course of action by arguing it was the best among bad options and insisting that the facility "won't stay open very long."

In further defense of the facility's reopening, White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained that the move was necessary because of complications of the coronavirus pandemic. Evidently, that's the line the administration is sticking with even as it relates to media coverage of the sites. It seems the pandemic is providing perfect cover for the administration's problematic actions.

But the truth is, COVID-19 is not the only contributing factor necessitating the facility's reopening. The problem was largely created by the Biden administration through its consistent messaging of leniency and openness at the border, effectively inviting an unprecedented surge of migrants. Now the administration faces nothing short of a full-blown crisis at the southern border.

"We need to prepare for border surges now," new Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff Timothy Perry recently wrote in a email to agency leadership. "We need to begin making changes immediately. We should privilege action over cost considerations; do what is needed, and the department will work on funding afterward."

Immigration authorities are reportedly expecting thousands more migrant children to flood into the U.S. in the coming months. In hopes of avoiding negative press about overcrowded conditions at facilities or the opening of more facilities, the Biden administration has authorized officials to purchase plane tickets to fly migrant children to their relatives' residences in the U.S.

Reporter confronts Jen Psaki on Biden admin reopening 'cages' shut down under Trump



White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday was confronted by a reporter on the Biden administration's apparent hypocrisy for reopening a temporary facility for migrant children in Texas closed by the previous administration.

President Joe Biden's administration reopened the temporary Influx Care Facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, to care for children, mostly teenagers age 13-17, who arrive at the border unaccompanied by a parent. The facility is capable of holding roughly 700 children with coronavirus safety measures implemented.

The site has been inactive since July 2019, when it was closed by President Donald Trump's administration after fierce criticism by Democrats that this facility and others like it treated migrant children inhumanely.

During Tuesday's press briefing, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Psaki why the Biden administration was reopening the facility.

Psaki said the policy of the Biden administration is "not to expel unaccompanied children who arrive at the border." She said Customs and Border Patrol transfers migrant children to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. She explained that COVID-19 protocols have reduced the capacity at existing facilities to hold migrant children, so this facility was reopened to accommodate the overflow.

"To ensure the health and safety of these kids, HHS took steps to open an emergency facility to add capacity where these children can be provided with the care they need before they are safely placed with families and sponsors," Psaki said.

According to the Associated Press, HHS operates several long-term facilities to process unaccompanied minor aliens apprehended by Border Patrol. Almost all of the nearly 7,100 beds at these facilities are reportedly full, requiring the administration to reopen temporary housing for these migrants.

Following up, Doocy reminded Psaki that in summer 2019, when the prior administration operated this facility, then-candidate Biden accused President Trump of keeping kids in cages and Kamala Harris said the Trump administration was keeping "babies in cages" and committing a "human rights abuse."

"How is this any different?" Doocy asked.

Peter Doocy just asked why Biden is opening up new "cages" for children at the border when he and Kamala referred t… https://t.co/JDD3GiyUdD
— Caleb Hull (I'm With the CCP Don't Ban Me) (@Caleb Hull (I'm With the CCP Don't Ban Me))1614101865.0

"We very much feel that way," Psaki replied, speaking of the accusations thrown at the Trump administration. "Let me be clear here, one, there's a pandemic going on. I'm sure you're not suggesting that we have children right next to each other in ways that are not COVID safe, are you?" she fired back at Doocy.

"I'm suggesting that Kamala Harris said that putting people in this facility was 'a human rights abuse committed by the United States government' and Joe Biden said, 'Under Trump there have been horrifying scenes at the border of kids being kept in cages.' Now it's not under Trump, it's under Biden," Doocy fired back.

"This is not kids being kept in cages," Psaki asserted. "This is a facility that was opened that's going to follow the same standards as other HHS facilities. It is not a replication, certainly not, that was never our intention of replicating the immigration policies of the past administration. But we are in a circumstance where we are not going to expel unaccompanied minors at the border. That would be inhumane. That is not what we are going to do here as an administration."

Continuing, she said that once the migrant children receive medical care they will be transferred to their families or sponsors.

Biden administration reopens Trump-era migrant children housing facility



Despite excoriating former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail over immigration policies affecting children separated from their families at the border, President Joe Biden appears to be adopting the same approach to the issue as his predecessor.

According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration has officially reopened a housing facility for migrant children along the U.S.-Mexico border in Carrizo Springs, Texas, capable of holding hundreds of children.

"Dozens of migrant teens boarded vans Monday for the trip down a dusty road to a former man camp for oil field workers here, the first migrant child facility opened under the Biden administration," the Post reported on Monday. "The emergency facility — a vestige of the Trump administration that was open for only a month in summer 2019 — is being reactivated to hold up to 700 children ages 13 to 17."

The move has been in the works since earlier this month, CNN reported, characterized by an administration spokesperson to the outlet as a necessary evil as immigration officials grapple with an overflow of illegal crossings taking place at the country's southern border.

"Fully remedying [Trump's] actions will take time and require a full government approach," a senior administration official said, urging patience.

Government officials similarly told the Post that the camp is needed to temporarily house children amid the coronavirus pandemic and the current surge of border crossings. Never mind the fact that Biden's lax immigration policies instigated the border surge in the first place.

In both cases, Biden administration officials are attempting to put a nice spin on the move. But what's happening in this case is obvious, at least to CNN reporter Priscilla Alvarez, who acknowledged, "While administration officials have condemned Trump's actions, they're still relying on them as they sort out next steps."

Despite the administration's best efforts to cast the move in a positive light, progressive immigration lawyers and advocates are also calling it out for what it is.

"It's unnecessary, it's costly, and it goes absolutely against everything Biden promised he was going to do," Linda Brandmiller, a San Antonio-based immigration lawyer who represents unaccompanied minors, told the Post. "It's a step backward, is what it is. It's a huge step backward."

"When I read they were opening again, I cried," said Rosey Abuabara, a San Antonio immigration activist. "I consoled myself with the fact that it was considered the Cadillac of [migrant child] centers, but I don't have any hope that Biden is going to make it better."

Mark Weber, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that handles migrant children, also made clear that the good care given to the children at such facilities has been consistent between administrations, though the Trump administration got a particularly bad rap from left-wing media.

That fact is especially pertinent given the Post's coverage of the new development under Biden. In its report this week, the facility is described in delicate terms, a far cry from the "kids in cages" language used by the Post during Trump's presidency, as noted by Fox News.

"Headlines from 2018 include, 'The American tradition of caging children,' and 'The real reason we're locking children in cages,'" Fox News recalled.