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Guatemalan President Blames Biden Administration For Border Crisis – Again

Left: WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 5: President Joe Biden walks into Holy Trinity Catholic Church to attend Mass on June 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images) RIGHT: Migrants enter the U.S. Southern Border [Twitter/Screenshot/Richie McGinniss]

[Samuel Corum/Getty Images/Twitter/Screenshot/Richie McGinniss]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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Guatemala’s president blamed President Joe Biden again Sunday for the Southern Border crisis, claiming Biden’s messages were “confusing” to migrants daring to make the treacherous journey.

“The message changed to ‘we’re going to reunite families and we’re going to reunite children. The very next day the coyotes were here organizing groups of children to take them to the United States,” President Alejandro Giammattei said.

“We are not on the same side of the coin. It is obvious. We are in agreement on the ‘what,’ which is something,” Giammettei said, according to Yahoo. “We are not in agreement on the ‘how.'”

This isn’t the first time Giammettei blamed Biden’s immigration policies on the migrant surge. During an April interview with MSNBC, Giammettei said Biden’s messages misled migrants to believe they were welcomed into the nation due to miscommunication.

“I believe that in the first few weeks of the Biden administration, messages were confusing. They were compassionate messages that were understood by people in our country, especially the coyotes, to tell families, ‘We’ll take the children,” he said. “And children can go, and once children are there, they will call their parents.”

Giammettei added the messages were confusing “because of the way they were translated here.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador laid similar blame on Biden in March.

“Expectations were created that with … President Biden [that] there would be better treatment of migrants,” Lopez Obrador said. “And this has caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border thinking that it is easier to do so.”

The Biden administration has fended off blame for the crisis and has repeatedly blamed former President Donald Trump. (RELATED: Trump Says Southern Border Is ‘Out Of Control’ On Biden’s Watch – White House Shoots Down His Criticism)

“There was a system in place in both Republican and Democratic administrations that was torn down during the Trump administration,” Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas said on CNN. “We are rebuilding the orderly systems that the Trump administration tore down.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also pushed the blame to Trump during a briefing in May.

“After four years of an immigration system rooted in destructive and chaotic policies, President Biden is taking the challenge head on and is building a fair, orderly and humane immigration system,” Psaki said. “That’s our objective. After coming into office, our administration immediately jumped into action to address the influx of migrants at the border – something that began during and was exacerbated by the Trump administration.”

Both Biden, and just recently Vice President Kamala Harris, have urged migrants not to come to the border.

Migrants from Guatemala told the Daily Caller exclusively they didn’t try to come under Trump because Trump wouldn’t let them in. The migrants then thanked Biden for his support.

A migrant reportedly from Honduras said he was coming to the U.S. because Biden had “given us 100 days” to arrive.

“What I want for my people, I just want patience and prayers that we can get to the U.S., because they’re having a new president whereas Biden, he’s going to help all of us,” the migrant said, according to Fox News. “He’s given us 100 days to get to the U.S. and give us ‘legalment’ paper so we can get a better life for our kids and family.”

During Biden’s first 100 days he signed at least 94 executive orders related to immigration, many of which reversed Trump’s policies and made immigration rules laxer.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) claimed Biden’s orders had near-immediate effects, noting ICE arrests were down more than 60 percent between Trump’s last three months in office through February, according to Fox News. During Trump’s first full month in office, ICE arrests were up 26 percent, according to the report.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) released a memo in March also blaming Biden’s policies for the border crisis.

“Over the next few months, Americans will watch the crisis on our border worse,” Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, chair of the RSC, wrote in the memo. “They will see the consequences of the radical left’s recklessness in real-time.”

“[E]very one of those consequences can be traced back to Joe Biden,” the representative said.

One of Biden’s biggest policies was his creation of a family reunification task force to reunite families separated under the Trump administration.

Biden also stopped construction on the Southern Border at the same time he ended Trump’s national emergency declaration at the border since he believed it was “unwarranted.”

Biden also ended the so-called “remain in Mexico” policy, which stipulated that asylum seekers must wait in Mexico while their court appearance was pending.

Louisiana and Texas also sued the Biden administration after they refused to take custody of illegal immigrants convicted of felonies.