In the months since President Biden assumed office, the United States has seen a historic surge of migrants illegally crossing the southern border. Officials say more than 100,000 migrants were encountered at the border in February, and reports indicate an unprecedented 117,000 migrant children are set to enter the country by the end of 2021.
While Republicans have called the situation a “crisis,” Democrats have largely been reluctant to do so, instead terming the surge a “challenge.” Here are the Democrats who have called the saga unfolding along the U.S.-Mexico border a “crisis.”
WHY CAN’T BIDEN CALL A CRISIS A CRISIS?
MEMBERS OF THE U.S. SENATE
Sen. Joe Manchin, who represents West Virginia, is currently the only Democratic senator who has publicly called the situation a “crisis.”
“It’s a crisis. Oh, it’s a crisis,” Manchin told CNN last week.
Manchin was joined by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who co-authored a letter with a Republican senator urging the Biden administration to address the “ongoing crisis” along the southern border.
“We write to urge you to use your full authorities to effectively respond to and successfully manage the ongoing crisis at our Southwest Border,” the letter said. “It is critical that our nation take aggressive steps to secure our border, protect our communities and ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely. We … hope to collaborate with you, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the rest of your Administration to tackle this challenge.”
MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of the “Squad” representing Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, reportedly called the surge a “crisis” that’s not going away during a press conference on Tuesday.
“This is not an issue or crisis, I think, that’s going to go anywhere,” she said, according to Just The News. “I mean, the last nine months, we continue to see these surges, these increases of these children coming across our border wanting a better life, and that is something that we need to figure out. How do we truly address that? Because doing nothing has consequences.”
Earlier this month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed former President Donald Trump for creating the current “humanitarian crisis.”
“The Biden administration is trying to fix the broken system that was left to them by the Trump administration,” she said. “The Biden administration will have a system, based on doing the best possible job, understanding this is a humanitarian crisis.”
LOCAL OFFICIALS
Bruno Lozano, the mayor of Del Rio, Texas, referred to the situation as a “crisis” in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
“It is very frustrating that here, we are just still recovering from that winter storm that left us with no water, no electricity, and you want to release migrants into the city of Del Rio and ignore the impact of one crisis on top of the other? It is hard to describe just how bad things got for us here, and yet, we find ourselves again trying to explain on a completely different issue how bad things are for us here,” he said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
While the Biden administration has used the word “challenge” to describe the influx, which officials chalk up to Trump’s “cruelty,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki briefly slipped this week, using the word “crisis” in reference to the situation.
“There have been expectations set outside of, unrelated to, any vaccine doses or request for them that they would be partners in dealing with the crisis on the border,” she said.
When asked about her use of the term, Psaki backpedaled.
“No,” she said before repeating Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s word “challenge.” “Nope,” she reiterated.
