Fact Check: Biden Tells Massive Whopper on Migrant Crisis During First Solo Press Conference
President Joe Biden was not truthful on Thursday during his first solo media briefing when he claimed that an overwhelming majority of migrant families are being “sent back” across the border.
“If you take a look at the number of people who are coming, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of people coming to the border and crossing are being sent back,” Biden said of migrant families and individual adults.
Joe Biden falsely claims that the “vast majority” of illegal immigrant families are “being sent back”https://t.co/pTnM0z4AZr pic.twitter.com/Ohb2VAWrKx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 25, 2021
In fact, according to Biden, only unaccompanied minors are immune from being turned away.
“Thousands, tens of thousands of people who are over 18 years of age and single people, one at a time coming, have been sent back,” Biden claimed while answering questions about the crisis his policies have created on the country’s border with Mexico.
Looking at multiple recent reports, that statement is outright false and doesn’t even pass a basic fact check. Biden’s administration just this past week actually allowed 87 percent of those who illegally crossed into the country to remain here, and many of those people who were not sent back were not unaccompanied minors.
On Tuesday, Axios reported, “The Biden administration kept a Trump-era policy known as ‘Title 42’ as a tool to quickly turn back adults and families who illegally cross the southern border — but new Department of Homeland Security data leaked to Axios shows in recent days it’s hardly been used for families.”
“The data shows an average of just 13% of nearly 13,000 family members attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border were returned to Mexico between March 14 and March 21 using the public health order, which essentially says the U.S. can close the border to nonessential travel because of the coronavirus,” the outlet added.
Axios noted that all of those people will remain in the country until their immigration and asylum cases are resolved in court.
The report also said DHS officials blamed their refusal to expel illegal crossers back across the border on Mexico because the country does not have the resources to handle the surge in people seeking entry into the U.S. now that Biden has taken office.
Even CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale called out the Democratic president on his claim that a majority of illegal border crossers are being turned away. Using data from last month, Dale blew the whistle on the Biden claim, noting that 59 percent of migrant family units were being permitted to stay in the country.
Biden said the vast majority of families are being sent back at the border. That was incorrect in February, when 41% of migrants in family units were being sent back. (The vast majority of single adults, 79%, were being sent back.)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 25, 2021
“Biden said the vast majority of families are being sent back at the border. That was incorrect in February, when 41% of migrants in family units were being sent back. (The vast majority of single adults, 79%, were being sent back.),” Dale tweeted.
While nearly eight in 10 single adults are presumably being denied entry into the country, Biden’s claims that the crisis is under control are not even supported by evidence from the left-wing establishment media. It’s difficult to know how accurate many of these numbers are, anyway, as the administration does not appear to be in control at the border.
During Thursday’s briefing, Biden also attempted to portray himself as a charitable, good-willed individual who has empathy for families from Central America and Mexico. People seeking asylum, he said, might understand that he is a “nice guy.”
He stopped short of accepting responsibility for fueling the humanitarian crisis on the border that could have all been avoided had his administration simply kept in place Trump-era policies that secured the border.
“I’d like to think it’s because I’m a nice guy, but it’s not,” Biden said Thursday to “PBS NewsHour” White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, who had asked about Title 42. “The truth of the matter is, nothing has changed.”
Biden says he believes surge in migrants is due to conditions in their countries and weather that’s better for traveling — not because he’s seen as a “nice guy” who’s lax on the border
“Does anyone suggest that there was a 31% increase under Trump because he was a nice guy?” pic.twitter.com/gbs6BE1yOh
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 25, 2021
Biden blamed the crisis on natural disasters and food shortages in other countries, and also on a pent-up demand to cross, now that former President Donald Trump has left office, and that the weather is ideal.
But Biden’s explanation that most families are being turned away was a lie, and the claim is disputed by even the Biden-friendly establishment media, which refrained from keeping him honest during the Thursday briefing.
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