- President Joe Biden and his administration have misled Americans about the situation at the southern border multiple times since taking office, according to Customs and Border Protection data and various media reports.
- Biden refused to call the influx of migrants at the southern border a “crisis” in April. Instead, he called it a seasonal surge that happens “every single solitary year.”
- “This administration is continuing to convince the American people that we’re not seeing what we’re seeing, that it’s actually not the crisis that it is,” former CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said at a Heritage Foundation event in April. “They’re working overtime to downplay, to spin, to provide misdirection … and quite frankly blatant lies are coming out of this administration.”
President Joe Biden and his administration have misled Americans about the situation at the southern border multiple times since taking office, according to Customs and Border Protection data and various media reports.
Biden refused to call the influx of migrants at the southern border a “crisis” in April. He has called it a seasonal surge that happens “every single solitary year.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data suggested otherwise. In March of this year, CBP saw a 400% increase when compared to the same period in 2020.
Record breaking apprehensions continued throughout the spring and summer.
In July, border officials encountered an estimated 210,000 migrants, including 19,000 unaccompanied minors, which challenges historical patterns that show migration generally slows during the summer months.
“It’s absurd and it’s just a lie to say that a 70% increase [in the number of migrants encountered at the southern border] from February to March is seasonal, or more than a 400% increase from March [2020] to March [2021] is seasonal, it’s just disingenuous, it’s a blatant lie that’s being told,” former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Well, I guess the Biden White House line that this is the usual annual migration surge at the border is no longer operative. pic.twitter.com/VNLIOZffsv
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) April 8, 2021
“I guess I should be flattered people are coming because I’m the nice guy, that’s the reason why it’s happening, that I am a decent man or however its phrased,” Biden joked in March, lambasting a lack of “human dignity” in his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.
Biden said the “vast majority” of migrants were sent back to Mexico under the Trump-era COVID-19 public health policy, called Title 42, which allows border agents to expel tens of thousands of people back over the border before they are able to claim asylum.
“They should all be going back,” Biden said in regard to migrants crossing the border during a March press conference.
Internal CBP data obtained by Reuters suggested otherwise. On March 17, for example, only about 15% of families stopped at the border were sent back under Title 42.
Biden said he would not deport unaccompanied children, who are not subject to Title 42, and was accused of falsely claiming that a new detention center was opened to comply with COVID-19 safety measures, which Morgan refuted, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
“Those facilities aren’t needed because of COVID, that’s absolutely not true, those facilities are needed because this administration is now encouraging, incentivizing, and facilitating illegal entry in the United States and the numbers have skyrocketed,” Morgan said.
In September, the Biden administration said the thousands of migrants under the Del Rio bridge in Texas would be “swiftly” deported, but were instead bussed on a “very, very large scale” to other border towns, the Associated Press and The New York Times reported.
Haitian migrants camped under the Del Rio bridge by the thousands. At least 1,400 were expelled and 3,206 were sent to other locations under CBP custody, which left less than 5,000 in the area, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials told Fox News.
The DHS numbers add up to 9,606 migrants, which doesn’t explain what happened to the rest of the nearly 15,000 migrants reportedly waiting at the international bridge, the Daily Beast reported.
Biden also furthered the inaccurate story that border patrol agents were whipping Haitian migrants at the border. The agents on horseback were lambasted by many media outlets for their apparent actions, removed from their positions and reassigned to desk duties while the incident is investigated.
“To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped,” Biden said in response to the incident. “It’s outrageous. I promise you those people will pay. There will be an investigation underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences.”
.@POTUS on Border Patrol agents in Del Rio: “Of course I take responsibility, I’m president. … To see people treated like they did, horses nearly running them over, people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you those people will pay.”https://t.co/BPa7voMRap pic.twitter.com/1NDhXJtUwX
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 24, 2021
Footage of the scene actually shows horseback border patrol agents using long reins to control their horses and direct Haitian migrants back toward the Rio Grande River.
The Biden administration has also misled Americans about what happens to migrants once they enter the country, including examples of secret flights transporting migrants across the country.
In May, local Tennessee news outlet WCRBtv reported that migrant children were being flown to southeastern American cities. WCRBtv obtained a video that appeared to show migrants arriving at Wilson Air Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the middle of the night.
“It is time for President Biden to be transparent with Tennesseans and the American people regarding where the hundreds of thousands of migrants being resettled in the United States are being sent because they deserve to know,” said Republican Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, who was unaware of the flights until he saw the footage.
On a July segment of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson revealed in a leaked email from a whistleblower that DHS was secretly transporting migrants across the U.S. from an Air Force base in Texas.
“Over the next few days, weeks, or months you may see passenger aircraft on our ramp transporting undocumented non-citizens,” the email said. “In coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Del Rio Border Patrol will be using the Laughlin AFB runway to transport undocumented non-citizens via a Boeing 747.”
“Do not take photographs and refrain from posting anything on social media. If anyone asks you about it, refer them to public affairs,” the email added.
Carlson said the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of the leaked email. (RELATED: Biden Names Official To Help Reverse Trump-Era Immigration Policies)
“This administration is continuing to convince the American people that we’re not seeing what we’re seeing, that it’s actually not the crisis that it is,” Morgan said at a Heritage Foundation event in April. “They’re working overtime to downplay, to spin, to provide misdirection … and quite frankly blatant lies are coming out of this administration.”
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