White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged a question Monday about whether the Biden administration knows the history of each person crossing the southern border illegally.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre about a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest in Virginia of an illegal immigrant accused of carnal knowledge of a child between the ages of 13 and 14 without force, possession of child sexual abuse material and producing child sexual abuse material. The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office arrested the Honduran national in July, but he was ultimately released from local custody without any ICE notification despite an immigration detainer seeking his arrest.
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“Doesn’t that go to show that as record numbers of people appear at the border, you guys have no idea what kind of people are coming into this country,” Doocy asked.
“Let me just say, first of all, this is why the president is having negotiations with senators, Republicans and Democrats, for the past couple of weeks to deal with what’s going on as it relates to border security. This is why the president on day one put forward a comprehensive immigration plan that for more than three years now Congress didn’t do anything about, but he’s appreciative that we’re having these conversations in the Senate,” Jean-Pierre said.
In fiscal year 2023, ICE made roughly 3,000 criminal arrests after making more than 2,200 in fiscal year 2022 and roughly 2,300 in fiscal year 2021, according to agency statistics.
The Pacific Enforcement Response Center lodged an immigration detainer against the illegal alien from Honduras with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in Fairfax, Virginia, which didn’t comply and instead released the noncitizen without informing ICE.
The press secretary added that Biden has deployed more troops and federal authorities to the southern border, removed more than 482,000 illegal migrants since May, carried out the “largest expansion” of legal pathways to entry and has ongoing talks with Mexico.
“There’s more work to do,” Jean-Pierre added, saying that Republicans in the House are “trying to get in the way” of ongoing negotiations between Congress and the White House to allocate more funding toward the issue.
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