President Joe Biden told reporters that he’s not planning to visit the southern border “because there are more important things going on.”
A reporter asked the president Tuesday at the White House why he was traveling to Arizona with no plans of visiting the border.
“Because there are more important things going on. They’re going to invest billions of dollars in the new enterprise in the state,” Biden responded, referencing a Taiwanese investment in the manufacturing of chips in Phoenix, Arizona.
The last time Biden was near the border was when he drove by in 2008 as vice president, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in 2021.
WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 06: U.S. President Joe Biden boards the Marine One helicopter on the South Lawn as he departs the White House on December 06, 2022 in Washington, DC. Biden is traveling to Phoenix, Arizona, to tour the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company chip-making factory and give a speech about his economic plan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The southern border experienced a record-breaking number of roughly 2.3 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2022, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) underreported the number of illegal immigrants released without tracking technology by more than 18,000%, documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans Demand CBP Commissioner Resign)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Vice President Kamala Harris have told the public that the border is “secure.”
Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday if Biden has any “plans” to go see the situation at the border himself.
“I want to be very clear here. The president’s trip tomorrow is about the American manufacturing boom we’re seeing all across the country thanks to, again, his economic policies,” Jean-Pierre responded.
Biden will be visiting TSMC, a Taiwanese company making a major investment to manufacture chips, in Phoenix, according to the White House.
Jean-Pierre told Fox New White House correspondent Peter Doocy on Wednesday that Biden “has been to the border.”
She did not respond when Doocy pressed when exactly Biden was at the border and said Republicans are doing “political stunts” while Biden “has been taking action to fix our immigration system and secure our border.”