White House officials and lawmakers headed to the southern border Wednesday for a surprise trip to an influx facility that temporarily houses unaccompanied children, but President Biden skipped the trip despite Republicans’ calls for him to see the crisis in person.
The trip would have been Biden’s first visit as president to a facility responding to the influx of children, families, and adults from Mexico, for which Republicans have blamed him. The group is only visiting a Department of Health and Human Services facility and not touring the border or looking at Border Patrol stations and facilities, which are overcrowded with people being held longer than the three-day cap.
BORDER PATROL NOT RETURNING MAJORITY OF FAMILIES DESPITE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS
The White House announced Wednesday morning that staff and members of Congress would travel to the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, which had stopped accepting children from the Border Patrol after the coronavirus positivity rate spiked past 10%. HHS said Tuesday that it was opening another facility on the property that would be a set of tents outside.
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The federal government has opened overflow facilities in Midland, Texas; Pecos, Texas; Carrizo Springs; and Dallas to hold more than 15,000 children in custody. The uptick of children follows the Biden administration’s decision in January to stop returning minors to Mexico, as was the policy in the final 10 months of the Trump administration. Children were sent back to their home countries to avoid filling government immigration facilities with people during the pandemic.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the White House’s message to migrants is that “it is not the time to come, it is not a safe journey to make, that we are turning away people at the border, the majority of people are turned away at the border. But at the same time, we believe it is the humane and moral step to treat and ensure … that these children are in safe places when they come across the border.”
