Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on the president’s border policies as she tried to blame Republicans for the current crisis.
The White House is considering using an executive action known as Section 212f to turn away asylum seekers and restrict migrants’ ability to claim asylum, CNN reported. This restriction of migrants resembles policies pushed by former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly tried to restrict asylum and plans to do so again if reelected.
Doocy pointed out Biden’s shift from believing those seeking asylum from “oppression” should come to possibly enact these executive orders.
“On the consideration of these new executive orders for the border, what changed between the time President Biden said ‘we are a nation that says if you want to flee and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come’ and now?” Doocy asked.
“I don’t understand,” Jean-Pierre replied. “What do you mean, your question, I don’t get it.”
“As a candidate, President Biden was telling people to come to the border. So what has changed since then?” he asked.
The press secretary said she has no context to that question, but agreed Biden is taking the border crisis and the “broken” immigration system very “seriously.” She then blamed House Republicans, particularly Speaker Mike Johnson, for preventing the White House from fixing the crisis. (RELATED: How Is It Possible?’: Doocy Presses KJP On Report Of ISIS Sympathizer Smuggling Illegal Immigrants Into US)
“House Republicans have gotten in the way. The speaker has gotten in the way. And so we want to deal with this issue, this is an issue that the majority of Americans care about. House Republicans, the speaker, got in the way. The question really is for the speaker. What changed? Speaker Johnson, what’s changed?” she said.
Doocy then asked why Biden would want to enact policies that resemble former President Donald Trump’s previous policies.
“Something else President Biden has promised is a more humane border policy that Trump. So why would he even be considering now a border policy that’s more similar to Trump?” Doocy asked.
“What border policy are you talking about?” the press secretary asked.
“Well, Axios is reporting that the legal authority Biden is considering using [what] powered Trump’s Muslim ban and similar sweeping restrictions at the border,” Doocy said.
Jean-Pierre declined to comment on Biden’s potential policies, but said the border needs more security and migrants need to be treated humanely.
She again referred his question to Johnson as she accused him of “getting in the way” of securing the border by voting against a long-awaited border bill that intended to allocate $20 million to border security and shut down the border if over 5,000 migrants enter the U.S. per day. It also included provisions to allocate tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel.
Senate Republicans narrowly blocked the bill in a 49-50 vote, and Johnson said the legislation would be “dead on arrival” in the House.