WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to provide a specific date when media will have access to Border Patrol facilities temporarily holding thousands of migrant children seeking to live in the states. United, but said Sunday that the Biden administration is committed to transparency and “we are working to get that done as soon as possible.”
More than 16,000 unaccompanied children were detained by the government on Thursday, including around 5,000 in substandard customs and border protection facilities.
Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have called on the administration to open the facilities to cameras, saying the current policy is designed to keep the public from “fully realizing” what is happening at the border.
Republican officials also blame the Biden administration for actions they say are causing more Central Americans to seek entry to the United States. “It’s not a crisis, it’s a complete loss of sovereignty there,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Graham recently traveled to the border and said he saw a facility designed to accommodate 80 children including about 1,000. He called on the administration to turn away all unaccompanied minors after testing them for “human trafficking abuse humans”.
“If you don’t, we’ll have 150,000 a month by this summer,” Graham said on Sunday.
US authorities reported encounters with more than 100,000 migrants at the southern border in February, the highest since a four-month streak in 2019.
Meetups averaged around 5,000 people per day throughout March, which would represent an increase of around 50% from February if these numbers continue throughout the month.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said the push was cyclical.
“They are not the result of the policies of one administration or the policies of another administration. They are the result, for example, of weather disasters in the region. They are the result of people fleeing poverty and violence,” Bedingfield said. “So we saw the spikes in 2014. We saw them in 2019 when the Trump administration had put in maybe the most cruel policies imaginable, the separation of families to try to deter people from coming, and they have always come.”
The Biden administration has continued to stress on Sunday talk shows that the US-Mexico border “remains closed” and the majority of adults are being turned away. But PSAKI said the administration was not going to force the children back on the dangerous journey.
“They are fleeing difficult economic circumstances, hurricanes, lawsuits in certain scenarios,” she said. “It doesn’t mean they can stay in the United States. It means their cases are being tried and we want to treat them humanely, make sure they’re in a safe place while their cases are being tried. That’s what we’re talking about here.”
Former President Donald Trump expanded and fortified border walls while championing “zero tolerance” policies that made it harder to seek asylum in the United States and led to some immigrant parents being separated from their children.
Under federal law, children arriving at the border without parents must be transferred within three days from U.S. Border Patrol custody to long-term care facilities operated by U.S. Health and Human Services until so that they can be passed on to family members or sponsors.
PSAKI said the administration is committed to transparency and providing access to these temporary Border Patrol facilities as soon as possible.
“We are aware of the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic. We want to keep these children safe, keep the staff safe,” Psaki said.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called on the president to let the media accompany him to a temporary detention center in Dallas on Monday.
“I urge you again to stop denying reality, face the consequences of your policies, and allow media access to these facilities,” Cruz wrote in a letter.
PSAki and Graham spoke on “Fox News Sunday,” while Bedingfield was interviewed on ABC’s “The Week.”
