White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed during a Thursday press briefing that President Joe Biden has done more to secure the U.S. border than anyone else.
CBS Senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe asked Jean-Pierre what she would say to congressional Democrats who are upset that the White House has not done more to secure the border through executive action.
“The president has done more to secure the border, to deal with this issue of immigration, than anybody else,” the press secretary responded. “He really has. June saw the single largest month-to-month drop in unlawful border crossing because of the policies this president put in place. We’ve got a record number of federal agents and officers, more than 24,000, working to secure the border because of the funding this president secured.”
Following the expiration of Title 42 in May, a Trump-era policy that was used to turn away migrants in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) logged a record-breaking number of migrant encounters for three continuous days.
Senior Biden administration officials, including Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, met with Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday to discuss the migrant crisis occurring within the state. The Biden administration committed to working with the state to help fill job vacancies with migrants who are straining the city’s social safety net. (RELATED: Biden Admin Blames New York’s Migrants Crisis On Hochul, Adams)
Hochul had asked the Biden administration on Aug. 24 to expedite work permits for migrants who are flooding New York City and to provide funds for the state to build additional shelters. Republican governors have begun busing migrants to New York City, leaving the city to care for about 100,000 migrants, despite not having the resources or capacity to do so.
“We are willing to work with Congress, with Republicans,” Jean-Pierre said at the press briefing. “We need Republicans to do this, we just do. But they keep turning it into a political stunt.”