MigrationBiden Administration Struggling for Coherent Message on U.S.-Mexico Border: Critics
The president and his advisers have offered sometimes contradictory assessments of the seriousness of a surge of migrants overwhelming border officials, and have sent mixed messages to the migrants themselves about what would happen if they reached the United States.
The Biden administration has struggled to deliver a coherent message about the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, critics contend.
The president and his advisers have offered sometimes contradictory assessments of the seriousness of a surge of migrants overwhelming border officials and have sent mixed messages to the migrants themselves about what will happen if they reach the United States.
People who generally support the administration’s approach to migration issues are frustrated by its failure to clearly articulate what is happening and how the administration is responding.
“Overall, I’d say the administration has really struggled to explain exactly what’s happening at the border, and really put some of the numbers into perspective for the American people,” said Danilo Zak, a senior policy and advocacy associate with the National Immigration Forum, an immigration reform advocacy group.
“It’s been a real struggle for the administration to message effectively, and that’s caused a lot of problems for other aspects of their immigration agenda,” Zak told VOA.
Opponents of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies quickly stepped into the gap, painting the situation along the southern border as a scene of unmitigated chaos and “catastrophe” that will boost crime and drug smuggling while endangering public health.
Mixed Messaging
The administration’s public statements on the border situation have been mixed at best. Earlier this year, officials staunchly refused to call it a “crisis” until Biden himself used the term in April, forcing the White House to backpedal.
In a trip to Central America in early June, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a stark message during a press conference in Guatemala, telling potential migrants, “Do not come.”
But that message has been diluted by other statements from the administration.
In March, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told potential migrants, especially children, that they ought to wait to make the journey north to the U.S. border for at least several months, while the administration expands its capacity to adjudicate claims of asylum.
But at the same time, he said the administration knows that “out of desperation” some children might not defer the trip north.
‘We Will Care for That Young Child’
“I hope they don’t undertake that perilous journey, but if they do, we will not expel that young child,” Mayorkas said. “We will care for that young child and unite that young child with a responsible parent. That is who we are as a nation, and we can do it.”
