President Joe Biden responded Tuesday to a question about the influx of illegal immigrants pouring over the border without being tested for COVID-19.
Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Biden about the amount of migrants coming into the country as the administration focuses on controlling the spread of the new delta variant of the coronavirus.
“You just said there is no wall high enough and no ocean wide enough to protect us from the virus. So what is the thinking behind letting untested and unvaccinated migrants cross the southern border into U.S. cities in record numbers?” asked Doocy.
Biden responded, “We have not withdrawn the order that is sometimes critical, or criticized, saying that unvaccinated people should … go back across the border. But unaccompanied children is a different story … That’s the most humane thing to do, is to test them and to treat them and not send them back alone.”
While the president appeared not to address Doocy’s question directly, some groups are increasingly unhappy with his actions at the border even as others criticize the administration for allowing migrants into the country who might have COVID-19.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is recommencing its lawsuit against the Biden administration due to its use of Title 42, a part of the U.S. code.
According to the ACLU:
Groups that sued the Trump administration over Title 42 expulsions of asylum seekers are heading back to court after hitting an impasse in negotiations with the Biden administration to end the policy.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Texas Civil Rights Project, RAICES, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Oxfam, ACLU of Texas, and ACLU of the District of Columbia are challenging the Title 42 expulsions.
They are seeking an immediate halt to the policy, which restricts immigration at the border based on an unprecedented and unlawful invocation of the Public Health Service Act, located in Title 42 of the U.S. Code.
“The Biden administration has left [them] no choice but to go back to court. It’s been seven months, and Title 42 is still in place,” a lawyer for ACLU said, adding that they “believe this is [their] only option.”
Others, however, have made the argument that the Biden administration is not doing enough to secure the border.
”This White House is allowing our country not only to be invaded with many criminals crossing the border, MS-13 potential or current gang members, but now they are letting a flow of people infected with COVID while they are telling students in the first and second grade that they have to wear a mask, or telling adults, vaccinate or wear a mask,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on Fox News last week.
Border Patrol Union president Brandon Judd also told Fox News that Border Patrol has to assume that everyone who they take into custody might have the virus. He also mentioned that they’ve had agents die from COVID-19.
Judd said:
We’re going to exceed 200,000 apprehensions in the month of July. 40% of those people were released into the United States to spread throughout our communities, a lot of whom very well could have COVID.
You got the problem of the COVID-19 spread. You’ve also got the problem of we just don’t have… we can’t put enough of our agents on the line to actually protect the border. This is a huge crisis and it keeps getting worse day by day.
It’s well over 20% that are testing positive for COVID and again, that is what is coming across our border and that’s what the American public needs to know.
Everybody that we take into custody we have to assume might have COVID and we have agents that are coming down. We’ve had agents that have already died due to COVID exposure and, yes, we have over 80 of our agents. Now, that’s another agent… that’s another 80 people that we have to take out of the field that can’t be patrolling the border simply because we’re being overwhelmed.
Watch the exchange here:
DOOCY: "What is the thinking about letting untested and unvaccinated migrants cross the southern border in record numbers?"
BIDEN: "We have not withdrawn the order that is sometimes — criticized saying that unvaccinated people should go back across the border." pic.twitter.com/W8Ob3vX6HJ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 3, 2021