The White House admits that the tragic mess we’re witnessing at the border right now is not viewed by the Biden administration as a crisis but as an opportunity.
Tuesday on MSNBC, the BBC’s Katty Kay asked precisely the right question of senior White House adviser Cedric Richmond. Did President Biden and his team underestimate the number of migrants who would begin illegally crossing into the country once the administration reversed the policy that had required them to remain in Mexico while their asylum claims were adjudicated?
“Look, the infrastructure was just not in place [to accommodate the migrants],” Richmond said. “We just went through four years of a chaotic and broken immigration system, a very inhumane immigration system.”
Kay interjected to ask why Biden didn’t first ensure that there was an adequate infrastructure in place before reversing the policy.
“Because of our values,” said Richmond. He went on to say that taking in as many migrants as possible and going through all of the procedures necessary to release them into the United States doesn’t “happen overnight, but we’re trying to make them happen overnight.”
That’s something everyone needs to understand, especially the reporters at Fox News who keep obsessing over White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s refusal to call the situation a “crisis.”
They don’t see it as a crisis, so why would they call it that? To the extent they see it as a problem at all has been articulated plenty by the White House. As Richmond said, they simply want to bring everyone in with more efficiency.
Psaki said earlier this month that she has “been in many meetings with the president where he asks how can this be faster?”
The border has certainly been overwhelmed and overrun by Mexico and Central America’s poorest people making their way here. But that’s no crisis for the administration. It’s exactly what they wanted. It’s exactly what Biden promised.
