Nearly two years after the illegal immigration crisis began at the U.S.-Mexico border, Democrat President Joe Biden has finally announced that he now intends to visit the border – for the first time since he entered office in January 2021.
Biden made the claim that he is planning a trip to the border as he spoke to reporters before boarding Air Force One in Kentucky.
“Are you going to be visiting the border when you head down to Mexico?” a reporter asked.
“That’s my intention, we’re working out the details now,” Biden claimed.
REPORTER: "Are you going to be visiting the border when you head down to Mexico?"
BIDEN: "That's my intention, we're working out the details now." pic.twitter.com/8sg83iJXep
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 4, 2023
The news comes a few weeks after White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden had no plans to visit the border.
“Does the President have any plans to go to the border? Is now a good time to go?” a reporter asked at the time.
“Look, the President’s focus right now is to come up with solutions, is focused on making sure that we have the resources to manage what — the challenges that we’re seeing at the border,” Jean-Pierre claimed.
When the reporter again tried to clarify if Biden would be visiting the border, Jean-Pierre interrupted and said, “I just answered the question… The President’s focus right now is to make sure that we have the resources to manage what’s happening right now.”
The illegal immigration crisis at the southern border began shortly after Biden took office in January 2021 as he quickly worked to dismantle many of the border security policies put in place by the Trump administration. Illegal immigration rapidly surged to record high levels as border officials encountered 1,734,686 migrants attempting to illegally cross the southern border in fiscal year 2021. That record was shattered the following year with border officials encountering 2,378,944 migrants in fiscal year 2022.
According to the most recent data from Customs and Border protection, fiscal year 2023 is on track to break the record set in fiscal year 2022, with both October and November setting all time records for migrant encounters in their respective months.