The Biden administration’s messaging on the border situation was heavily criticized on Sunday by a panel on CNN’s “Inside Politics” program, with panelists stating that he has not taken immigration “seriously” and that his messaging on the border has been “really bad,” Fox News reports.
CNN’s Chief National Affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, said, “Democrats are deeply disappointed in what this administration has and hasn’t done. He’s not taken this as seriously. You can hear by his rhetoric there. That of course is why he’s going.”
Zeleny added that it is not certain whether Biden is aware of the politics on immigration within his own party and that, while his upcoming visit to El Paso, Texas is largely seen as a photo op, it could be a sign that he is taking the issue more seriously.
Host Abby Phillip commented, “I don’t like to describe the president’s trip to El Paso as a photo op because of what is going on in border cities. There’s a real situation happening at the border that as president sometimes you do have to see it to understand it.”
Punchbowl News co-Founder John Bresnahan said, “Their messaging throughout their administration as Jeff said, has been really bad. They don’t really have a cohesive policy, at least they haven’t presented one.”
CNN’s Kasie Hunt added, “It was easy relatively for Democrats to point to the inhumanity of many of the Trump policies when Trump was in charge and Republicans controlled some segments of the government.”
“Now Democrats are in charge, which means that they own the problem,” she went on to say. “When we have Democratic governors like Jared Polis of Colorado raising flags, and saying, ‘Hey, this is a problem.’ The administration is now – they’re the ones who have to answer for that. So yes, they’re going to get some pressure I think from their left on what obviously they’re saying is the inhumanity of these policies. But the bottom political line is that they’re going to have to own it, if it’s an expansive problem, it’s a political problem in 2024.”
Meanwhile, New York Times reporter Michael Shear asked National Security Council spokesman John Kirby and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about allegations that migrants are being treated worse under the current administration, according to Just the News.
Shear referred to “damning quotes from immigration advocacy groups and human rights groups” and asked, “What does the administration say to the overwhelming consensus from people who advocate on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees and migrants that what the President did yesterday was ‘a humanitarian disgrace’?”
Kirby argued that Biden is “striking that balance” by allowing more refugees in and encouraging legal pathways to migrate.
Shear also mentioned how lawsuits were frequently filed against the Trump administration over their immigration policies, and now similar suits may be brought against the Biden administration.
He said, “That puts this President, who spent so much time on the campaign trail talking about how – you know, how he wanted to be different than Donald Trump when it came to immigration issues – I mean, it just puts you guys in a really awkward place, doesn’t it?”
Jean-Pierre responded, “I understand what you’re saying. But I do take – you know, I do take issue with comparing us to Donald Trump. You’re talking about an administration who had a policy – right? – that tore babies away from their moms, from their parents, from their families. That was the last administration’s philosophy or policies. And that’s what they did. And this is not this President.”
