Watch Jen Psaki Struggle to Get Through Brutal Line of Questioning About Border from Fox's Peter Doocy
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy put White House press secretary Jen Psaki in the hot seat Monday during the daily press briefing, asking her tough questions about the southern border.
Psaki tried to brush off the questions, as the administration has refused to call the situation a “crisis” in an effort to steer away negative media coverage.
“So now that Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley are letting adult migrants go without even issuing notices to appear, is the Biden immigration policy just becoming more of, like, the honor system?” Doocy asked.
“That is an inaccurate depiction of what’s happening at the border. So there’s no change in policy. The border remains closed. Families and single adults are being expelled under Title 42 and should not attempt to cross illegally. In the narrow, narrow circumstances in which families can’t be expelled, the family is tested and quarantined as needed and placed in immigration proceedings to commence,” Psaki responded.
“In some cases, families are placed in removal proceedings further along in the release process. So if families are going to be — going to be deported and they’re awaiting deportation, they don’t need a court date and they don’t need a notice to appear because it has already been determined that they will be sent back to their home countries. Sometimes that takes a minute to ensure there is proper transportation and steps in place to do that.”
Doocy then doubled down on the facilities holding children, as there is concern that overcrowding will spread coronavirus in the facilities and into nearby communities.
“So what is his concern about this being a super-spreader event, where you’ve got 400 kids stuffed into a pod built for 260?” he questioned.
“These kids are tested. If they need to be quarantined, they are quarantined. We also follow CDC guidelines to ensure that they are kept safe. One of the reasons that it took us some time to have some of these facilities or some of the shelters open to larger groups of kids is because we wanted to follow those CDC guidelines. So we certainly don’t see it through that prism. We actually took the steps we did to keep these kids safe.”
[firefly_poll]
“But where else in the country would it be okay to have 400 people in a space for 260 during the pandemic?” Doocy asked.
Psaki danced around the question with promises of wanting to move children “as quickly as possible” through crowded border facilities and into shelters with “safe spacing,” until ultimately telling Doocy his time was up.
Peter Doocy: “Now that Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley are letting adult migrants go without even issuing notices to appear. Is the Biden immigration policy just becoming more of like the honor system?”
Psaki: “That is an inaccurate depiction of what’s happening” pic.twitter.com/ao1PC201Ky
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 22, 2021
These next two questions from Peter Doocy ?:
What is his concern about this being a super spreader event where you’ve got 400 — kids stuffed into a pod built for 260?
(….)
But where else in the country would it be ok to have 400 people in a space for 260 during the pandemic? pic.twitter.com/yFyMHI3SDp— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 22, 2021
Psaki touted that she would promote transparency in her role as press secretary, but her response regarding the border indicates flat-out denial.
By downplaying the severity of the situation, the Biden administration is closing the door to finding solutions to end surges like this one for good.
Make no mistake — this surge has little to do with the immigration system under the previous administration and everything to do with President Joe Biden.
When people are arriving at the border wearing T-shirts and waving flags with the president’s name on them, it’s reasonable to conclude his political messaging played a role in creating the crisis.
Migrants wear Biden T-shirts at US-Mexico border, demand clearer policies https://t.co/GvatYRHcCD
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) March 6, 2021
It’s hard not to feel terrible for some of the people arriving at the border, because they’ve essentially been scammed. They expected a Democratic president would be better prepared to process migrants and ended up being sorely mistaken.
Thankfully journalists like Peter Doocy are committed to uncovering the reality of the situation, instead of simply going to bat for Biden.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
