Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
McCarthy, Republicans Say Biden Created Migrant 'Crisis' at U.S.-Mexico Border
Posted
March 15, 2021
Views
1,533
Likes
44
Comments
38
Engagement
March 15, 2021
1,533
44
38
5.35%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
0:59Now PlayingRepublican members of Congress trooped to the U.S.-Mexico border Monday to put a spotlight on a surge of migrants at the frontier that they say is the result of President Joe Biden’s shift from the hardline immigration policies of his predecessor.
Less than two months into Biden’s term, both parties are already framing their messages on immigration -- a perennial political flashpoint -- for the 2022 election to decide control of the House and Senate.
Speaking at an El Paso, Texas, detention center built last year, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said Biden should be there instead of traveling to tout the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill he signed into law last week. The facility has exceeded its 1,040-person capacity, McCarthy said, claiming that migrants are encouraged by Biden’s pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.
“This crisis is created by the policies of this new administration,” McCarthy said at a news conference with a dozen other Republican House lawmakers. “There’s no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis.”
During President Donald Trump’s time in office, high-profile Democrats such as New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren used trips to the border to draw attention to the squalid conditions for asylum seekers and people caught crossing the border illegally. It was, they argued, the purposeful result of Trump’s harsh policies.
The point and counterpoint of such trips illustrate just how far apart Democrats and Republicans have moved from any consensus on what to do about an immigration system that both sides agree is broken and in need of a fix.
Biden campaigned on a pledge of offering more assistance to those seeking refugee status in the U.S. Republicans say he is embracing an “open borders” approach that includes undoing a Trump administration program that sent thousands of asylum seekers back to Mexico until their immigration court hearings.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week it is “absolutely incorrect” to refer to Biden’s policy as open borders, adding that the “vast majority of individuals apprehended or encountered at the border continue to be denied entry and are returned.”
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.
To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.
Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake
Connect with us on…
Breaking News on YouTube
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
