Biden vows action on migrants as he defends border policy

26 March 2021, 07:44

Joe Biden
Biden. Picture: PA

The US leader is pushing back at suggestions his administration’s policies are responsible for increasing numbers of people seeking to enter America.

The US will take steps to more quickly move hundreds of migrant children and teens out of cramped detention facilities along the south-west border, Joe Biden said on Thursday.

The president was pushing back against suggestions his administration’s policies are responsible for the rising number of people seeking to enter the country.

Pressed repeatedly on the border issue at his first news conference since taking office, Mr Biden said his administration was taking steps to address the situation with measures such as setting aside space at a Texas Army base for about 5,000 unaccompanied minors. But mostly he fired back at criticism.

He noted that his administration, as was done under President Donald Trump, is continuing to quickly expel most adults and families under a public health order imposed at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. The crucial difference is that the government is allowing teens and children, at least temporarily, to stay in the country, straining government resources during the pandemic.

“The only people we’re not going to let be left sitting there on the other side of the Rio Grande by themselves with no help are children,” he said.

The situation along the US-Mexico border has become an early challenge for the administration, drawing more questions than any other subject at the maiden news conference, and diverting attention as the administration addresses the pandemic and the economy.

Children at US border
Fatima Nayeli, 13, left, ands her sister, Cynthia Stacy, eight, answer questions from a US Border Patrol agent at an intake site after they were smuggled on an inflatable raft across the Rio Grande river in Roma, Texas (AP)

The number of migrants attempting to cross the border is at the highest level since a spring 2019 surge under Mr Trump, according to the most recently released statistics. The numbers appear to be rising and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently warned they are on pace to hit a 20-year peak.

Mr Biden sought to portray it as a seasonal spike and not, as critics have said, a result of moves such as his decisions to halt construction of border wall projects started under Trump or support for broad immigration legislation.
e
“It happens every year,” he said. “Does anybody suggest that there was a 31% increase under Trump because he was a nice guy and he was doing good things at the border? That’s not the reason they’re coming.”

People being deported
Migrants deported from the US walk into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (AP)

Mr Trump responded to a sharp increase in border crossings in 2019 by requiring migrants to wait in Mexico while the US evaluated their asylum petitions or to make claims instead in Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras. Those Trump-era programmes were criticised for sending people fleeing violence back into dangerous situations.

Former acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf, now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said on Thursday that Mr Biden invited the current crisis by ending those programs and other measures.

“He took away all of the consequences, at the same time he began to message that it was perfectly acceptable to come,” he said.

Mr Biden, for his part, condemned the Trump-era requirement that migrants await their asylum claims in Mexico as “sitting on the edge of the Rio Grande in a muddy circumstance with not enough to eat.”

He also criticised an earlier policy of separating children from their families at the border and argued that it was conditions in people’s home countries that push them to the US border.

“It’s because of earthquakes, floods. It’s because of lack of food. It’s because of gang violence,” he said. “It’s because of a whole range of things that when I was vice president had the same obligation to deal with unaccompanied children.”

By Press Association

Latest World News

See more Latest World News

Video footage shows the convoy had emergency lights flashing when it was hit

Israel admits ‘mistakenly’ killing 15 aid workers after video leak contradicted official version of events

Jaguar Land Rover has paused shipments to the US in the wake of 'Liberation Day' tariffs

Jaguar Land Rover halts shipments to US in wake of tariffs as Trump insists he'll win 'economic revolution'

Flowers and toys left on a swing seat to commemorate victims killed in Russia's missile attack on Friday

Death toll from Russian strike on Zelenskyy's home town rises as 18 confirmed dead - including nine children

Donald Trump's 10% tariff on UK products has officially come into force

Trump tariffs come into force as global stock markets plunge deeper into the red

Tom Howard

British tourist killed after being struck by boulder on trek through Himalayas

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a car burns following a Russian missile attack that killed more than a dozen people, including children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Russia kills 16 people including three children in missile strike on Zelenskyy's home town, with dozens wounded

Travel influencer Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, made an illegal visit to North Sentinel Island

Tourist who left Coke for world's most isolated tribe 'could have wiped them all out' - and police 'can't go collect can'

White House weighs in to support ‘censored’ anti-abortion activists in Britain

White House looking to support ‘censored’ anti-abortion activists in Britain

This image provided by NASA shows Nick Hague, right, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore. (NASA via AP)

Stranded NASA astronauts reveal they were almost trapped in space 'forever' after horror malfunction

Donald Trump demands France 'free Marine Le Pen'

Donald Trump demands France 'free Marine Le Pen' after far-right leader found guilty of embezzlement in 'witch hunt'

China will impose a 34% retaliatory tariff on imports from the US

China announces additional 34% tariffs on US imports in retaliation over Trump's 'Liberation Day' levies

Friends of Prince Andrew say he's "unsurprised" Giuffre made the post

Prince Andrew 'not surprised' his accuser shared shock post saying she had 'four days to live'

South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol

South Korea president Yoon Suk Yeol removed from office as impeachment upheld over martial law declaration

Virginia Giuffre

Woman driving Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre during crash that left her with 'four days to live' breaks silence

Exclusive
'Donald Trump has made Putin comfortable,' Mikhail Khodorkovsky has warned

'Trump has made Putin comfortable' despite massive Ukraine war losses, exiled former oligarch tells LBC

The bodies of Andrew Searle and his wife Dawn were discovered by a neighbour.

British couple found dead in south of France home being ‘treated as murder-suicide’