Joe Biden defiantly defended his decision to take a pass on visiting the southern border while in Arizona this week, saying on Tuesday: “There are more important things.”
Biden made his comments while preparing to board Marine One at the White House on Tuesday in advance of his trip to Arizona for some high-profile media events at semiconductor manufacturing plants to celebrate the enactment of the Chips and Science (CHIPS) Act of 2022 four months ago.
Despite the ongoing crisis at America’s southern border that his policies have created, Biden has never visited the U.S.-Mexico border in his many decades as an elected official.
DISGUSTING: Joe Biden visits Arizona & accidentally confirms what we all knew: he does not care one bit about the Border Crisis.
Reporter: “Why would you visit our state and not visit the border?”
Sleepy Joe: “There are more important things going on” pic.twitter.com/pPBGPktOti
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 6, 2022
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Biden, “Why go to a border state and not visit the border?”
Biden said in his typically dismissive tone, “Because there are more important things going on. They’re going to invest billions of dollars in a new enterprise.”
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Biden’s decision not to visit the border even though he would be only 100 miles away for the CHIPS Act events.
She gave a typically non-responsive answer: “We should be able to reach a bipartisan agreement on immigration, too, and that’s what we’re calling for, right? We’re asking for Republican officials to come and work with us, and let’s have a bipartisan agreement on immigration instead of doing political stunts.”
Illegal migration into the U.S. has hit record levels during the two years of the Biden administration. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that officers had 230,000 encounters at the border with illegal migrants in October alone. That set a new monthly record, breaking the previous high set just a month before in September.
With the impending end of the enforcement of the Trump-era Title 42 health regulations implementing many immediate deportations at the border, experts expect that the numbers of illegal border crossers will only increase in the coming months.
The fiscal year 2022, which ended in September, saw an annual record of almost 2.4 million illegal migrant encounters. That total does not include “getaways” who evaded law enforcement, of which there were nearly 600,000 known and an untold number unknown.
Biden named Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the administration’s effort to address illegal immigration. She has told reporters that America’s border is “closed.” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has repeatedly claimed before Congress that the border is “secure.”
