Biden defends immigration policy
Says influx isn’t due to him being a ‘nice guy’
President Biden defended his decision to roll back some of the immigration policies of his predecessor and said the influx of migrants at the southern border isn’t because he’s a “nice guy.”
“Rolling back the policies of separating children from their mothers? I make no apology for that. Rolling back the policies of ‘Remain in Mexico,’ sitting on the edge of the Rio Grande in a muddy circumstance with not enough to eat? I make no apologies for that,” Biden said in his first solo news conference as president.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said earlier this month the United States is on pace to see the highest number of migrant arrivals at the southwest border in 20 years.
“I’d like to think it’s because I’m a nice guy — but it’s not,” Biden said Thursday.
“The truth of the matter is, nothing has changed,” Biden said, noting there’s usually a “significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months” and that people are migrating because of their circumstances in their home countries — not because there’s a new president.
The Biden administration has chosen not to expel unaccompanied migrant children, and the influx of thousands of minors has led to some kids in U.S. custody sleeping under foil blankets on mats on the floor.
The president said the conditions reported in some facilities are “unacceptable” and that things need to get “a whole hell of a lot better real quick or we’re going to hear of some people leaving.”
One reporter spoke of a 9-year-old boy who walked to the U.S. from Honduras because his mother believed Biden is not deporting unaccompanied minors. She asked the president if unaccompanied minors should eventually be expelled from the country.
Biden said there’s a judgment to be made and “in this young man’s case, he has a mom at home, there’s an overwhelming reason why he’d be put on a plane and flown back to his mom.”
Biden just this week announced Vice President Kamala Harris would be his administration’s point person on immigration issues at the southern border.
He said his administration is trying to work with Mexico on “their willingness to take more of those families back” who are coming across the border.