Biden to migrants: ‘Don’t come’ amid surge at the border

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• President Joe Biden admitted Tuesday that his administration is facing a challenge amid the surge of migrants at the southern border.
• In an exclusive ABC interview, Biden addressed the migrants by telling them “Don’t come over.”
• The president also acknowledged that the surge “could be” worse than the influx experienced by the Trump administration in 2019.

A surge of migrants poses a challenge for the new administration, President Joe Biden admitted on Tuesday during an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

“I can say quite clearly don’t come over,” Biden told Stephanopoulos, referring to the migrants. “Don’t leave your town or city or community.”

The president admitted that the surge ‘could be’ worse than the migrant rush that occurred during the Trump administration. The 2019 migrant surge led to the infamous border crackdown.

Biden, alongside his aides, said that his administration would need to allot time in building a process that would carefully and safely accommodate the influx of migrants.

He rebuked the notion that large crowds of migrants were coming in since he overturned several immigration policies previously set by former President Donald Trump.

“The idea that Joe Biden said, ‘Come’ — because I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy. Here’s the deal: They’re not,” he said.

On Tuesday, the CBS Evening News reported that over 13,000 young migrants were being processed for US custody with an average time of 120 hours. The policy in place set the limit at 72 hours.

In a statement Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that they anticipate migrant crossing to the US southern border to be at the highest rate in twenty years.

Mayorkas, together with other White House aides, has continuously urged migrants to refrain from going to the border amid a consistent surge of unaccompanied young migrants trying to travel across the US.

The president told the media on Tuesday that he has no current plans of visiting the border.

Source: The Hill