A reporter asked the White House press secretary Monday to explain why President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas disagree on whether or not the southern border is secure.
Fox News reporter Jacqui Henrich asked Biden Friday whether or not he believes the southern border is secure, to which he responded, “no, it’s not,” contradicting Mayorkas’ previous statements asserting that it is. During Biden’s tenure, the southern border has seen record illegal immigration with Border Patrol recording more than 2.2 million illegal encounters in fiscal year 2022 and more than 2 million in fiscal year 2023, according to federal data.
Fiscal year 2024 saw the highest month of encounters on record in December surpassing 300,000, according to Fox News.
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“On Friday, President Biden said that he does not believe the border is secure, which is different from what Secretary Mayorkas has testified multiple times on the hill, why do they have two different views of the security of the border?” the reporter said.
Jean-Pierre responded that the president is waiting on Congress to provide more funding for border security.
“The president’s been clear, he’s been clear that we need to move on the border, he needs resources to deal with the situation at the border. That’s why they’re having this conversation at the Senate, on the senate level and that’s why he’s asking for more resources,” Jean-Pierre said.
“There’s an issue at the border, we need to deal with it and we have to act now. There’s an urgent need to act now, we want to find a bipartisan agreement to deal with that, and so we feel that meaningful change and additional resources are critical at this time,” Jean-Pierre said.
The reporter pressed Jean-Pierre further, saying she didn’t understand the “disconnect” between Biden and his own DHS secretary.
“He is saying something different than the president about whether it’s secure or not. I guess I just have a hard time understanding why there is a disconnect here,” the reporter said.
“The president has repeatedly said that the immigration system is broken. He has said that on day one, from day one when he put forward his first piece of legislation, his first big policy was to deal on the border, and it’s been three years, we haven’t seen any action, we’re glad to see that there’s conversation in the Senate,” Jean-Pierre said.
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