The Joe Biden administration is preparing to allow media access to border facilities and will release details in the coming days, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday amid criticism over the ability of journalists and photographers to access facilities housing an increase in migrant children.
“First, we are working to finalize the details, and I hope to have an update in the next few days,” Psaki told reporters during the White House press briefing. “We are working with the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Department of Homeland Security to ensure privacy and ensure we are following Covid protocols. We remain committed to transparency, and of course, as I noted last week, we certainly want to ensure that the media have access to these sites.
The issue of media access has caught the attention of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have hammered the Biden administration, while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told NPR over the weekend, “We want to make sure the press has access to hold the administration accountable. That’s why I was there, to hold them accountable. And they’ve seen a push that started last year, that started under the Trump administration, but it’s real. This depletes their resources. And right now these kids are staying, you know, too long in detention centers. During the briefing, journalists pressed Psaki over reports of overcrowding in detention centers housing the minors.
Murphy visited the border in El Paso on Friday as part of a delegation of senators, but that briefing was closed to the press. Murphy said “the increase in the number of children arriving at the border has happened so rapidly that it has been difficult to get them out of these detention centers in less than three days”, as is required. He defended the Biden administration and said they were trying “as quickly as possible to treat these children humanely.” He and others argue the wave started before Biden took office.
Jacob Soboroff, NBC News and MSNBC correspondent, author of Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, said last week that “the Biden administration is doing itself no favors by keeping us out of these facilities. I understand Covid is happening right now. You must have precautions inside these places. But the Trump administration let us in. And they let us in because they wanted to explain to us and show us the cruelty of the separation policy. They wanted everyone to see this. Now it’s the Biden administration’s turn to open the doors so we can fully tell not just where they want to go, but why they want to go there.
Last week, the Radio Television Digital News Association sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security calling for immediate access to reporters at Border Patrol processing facilities.
“The lack of information and cooperation from Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security has also created a kind of vacuum that traditionally biased sources fill with information that only serves their political interests,” wrote Dan Shelley, the organization’s executive director. “This dynamic is not conducive to journalists’ efforts to communicate unbiased information to the public nor constructive to the heated dialogue of elected officials both locally and nationally.”
In a phone interview with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner on Monday, Trump blamed the Biden administration for the surge in migrants at the border. At one point in the interview, Faulkner interrupted him to announce, “DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has resigned, Mr. President.
Trump said he was “not surprised”.
But then Faulkner said, “Wait. Let me stop. Let me listen to the team one more time… Sorry, that didn’t happen. And I apologize.
“OK, cross out that win,” Trump said.
A Fox News spokesperson said, “The error stemmed from an audio issue in a virtual work environment. We have corrected the error and continued maintenance.
Trump had released a statement over the weekend calling for Mayorkas’ resignation.
During the briefing, NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell asked PSAki “what parameters would have to be in place” for the administration to call the influx of migrants a “crisis.”
“Children who show up at our border fleeing violence or lawsuits, fleeing terrible situations, are not a crisis,” Psaki said. “We believe it is our responsibility to approach this situation humanely and to ensure that they are treated and placed in safe conditions.”
She said their policy is not to send children back, but to expedite processing at the border, open additional facilities and restart the Central American minors program.
Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Psaki if Biden was worried about minors being crowded and created a “superbroadcast” event. “These children are being tested,” she said. “If they have to be quarantined, they are quarantined. We also follow CDC guidelines to ensure their safety.
But Doocy asked, “where else in the country would it be acceptable to have 400 people in a space for 260 during the pandemic?”
“We want to move these children as quickly as possible through these facilities and into the shelters where there is safe spacing, and then move them into homes where there is safe spacing,” she said.
