During the first press conference of his presidency, Biden said that his administration is sending back “the vast majority of families that are coming” over the US-Mexico border. Axios reports that only 13 percent of families were sent back in the past week.
CNN and reports that 41 percent of families were sent back in February and that the majority of single adults are being set back at a rate of 79 percent.
The Biden administration is not expelling a majority of migrant families, according to Axios and CNN. The majority of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border are single adults, according to The Wall Street Journal. The number of migrants attempting to cross the border is about the same as it was in the spring of 2019 during the Trump presidency, according to Pew Research Center.
On the U.S. side of the issue, Congress hasn’t passed meaningful legislation to modernize the legal immigration system or to better prepare the federal government for surges at the border. (The last big immigration law was enacted in 1986, when Ronald Reagan was president.) It’s also worth noting that there are seasonal trends at play — migration tends to increase in the spring.
Biden announced on Wednesday that VP Harris will lead the effort to stem the flow of migrants across the US-Mexico border. A federal judge ruled in November that the Trump administration could not expel unaccompanied children under Title 42. An appeal stayed the November ruling and said the expulsion of unaccompanied children could resume. The Biden administration decided not to expel unaccompanied minors, but it continues to expel adults and families, according to The New York Times.
The number of migrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border has surged in the last month, Forbes reports. However, despite claims by some Republicans, President Joe Biden has kept the border largely closed for most migrants, according to Poynter, Forbes and The New York Times. The current administration has also kept in place Title 42, a Trump-era order that allows border officials to expel migrants. On Wednesday, Biden announced that Vice President Harris will lead the effort to stem the flow of migrants across the border.
The number of migrants caught crossing from Mexico into the United States spiked last month, leading some Republicans to accuse President Joe Biden of opening the southern border, but while the Biden administration has made it easier for kids and some families to enter the United States, the border is still largely closed for most migrants.
In mid-November, a federal judge ruled that the administration could not expel unaccompanied children. As a result, expulsions of unaccompanied children fell from nearly 3,200 in October to 1,520 in November to just three in December and 18 in January. An appeals court stayed that ruling in late January, once again allowing the expulsion of children, but the Biden administration has decided against the practice. It continues to send back adults and families, however.
In reality, over 70% of people caught crossing into the United States last month — and almost 90 percent of single adults — were expelled to the other side of the border almost immediately after their arrests, a policy former President Trump initiated last year to prevent Covid-19 from spreading, meaning the border is still sealed off for many people.
President Joe Biden took questions from members of the media at the White House on Thursday in what was the first press briefing of his presidency. He addressed questions on issues including his administration’s US-Mexico border response, gun control and COVID-19.
Biden addressed his administration’s response to the surge of migrants on the US-Mexico border. He set a goal of 200 million COVID-19 vaccine shots by his first 100 days in office. The president also said he would run for office again in 2024 with Kamala Harris as his VP.
