Honeymoon Over: Media Slams Biden Over Handling of Border Migrant Crisis

 The media can no longer cover up the Biden administration’s failures handling the migrant crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico. It’s not that the establishment media agrees with the successful border policies of President Trump, it is that Biden has botched their long-desired rollback of Trump’s policies so thoroughly and incompetently they feel betrayed and are lashing out.

Immigrants at the southern US border, some wearing t-shirts that read “Biden Please Let Us In” at San Ysidro crossing port in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico on March 2, 2021, photo by Guillermo Arias AFP/Getty

Two months of secrecy and word games by Biden officials are being ripped this weekend by outlets including the Washington Post, ABC News and CNN.

The Washington Post’s Sunday front page leads with a salvo blasting Biden.

…Less than a month later, the new president began tearing down some of the guardrails himself. He issued five immigration executive orders on Inauguration Day alone and promised an immigration policy far more humane and welcoming than that of his predecessor. His administration also began allowing unaccompanied minors into the country, a marked departure from the Trump administration’s approach.

Now, the Biden administration is scrambling to control the biggest surge in 20 years, with the nation on pace for as many as 2 million migrants at the southern border this year — the outcome Biden said he wanted to avoid.

…The situation at the border — which Biden and his advisers steadfastly refuse to call a crisis — is the result of an administration that was forewarned of the coming surge, yet still ill-prepared and lacking the capacity to deal with it. Administration officials have been plagued by muddled messaging, sometimes making appeals that seem directed more at liberal activists than the migrants they need to dissuade from coming to the country.

..On Wednesday, White House officials convened a private video call with Democratic strategists and prominent voices on immigration to coordinate their messaging. The officials talked about the need to push back against Republican attacks on the topic, and stressed key talking points — that immigration trends are cyclical and that Trump’s mishandling of the system made the challenges for Biden even harder, according to three people on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions.

White House communications director Kate Bedingfield also argued that the immediate crises at hand are the coronavirus pandemic and the economy, and that Republicans are trying to use immigration to distract from the covid relief package’s popularity, one of the people on the call said.

Note: The Post headline references this Border Patrol tweet from Wednesday, “No end in sight as large groups continue entering in the #RGV. In 48 hrs, agents arrested 369 illegal aliens mainly consisting of family members and UACs in 4 separate groups. This year, agents have encountered 19 groups of 100 or more people illegally entering the US.”

CNN blasted what it called the “Biden border blackout” of the Biden administration for its lack of transparency, unfavorably comparing it to the openness of the Trump administration and calling them “disconnected from reality.”

ABC News moved its Sunday news show This Week to the border. The reporter panelists hammered the Biden administration, “ABC On Biden’s Crisis: No “Preparation,” “He Owns This,” “Tone Deaf,” “Doesn’t Have A Plan”:

More ABC: “ABC’s Martha Raddatz to illegal alien who crossed the border: “Would you have tried to do this when Donald Trump was president?” Illegal alien: “Definitely not.”…Raddatz: “Did you come here because Joe Biden was elected president?” Illegal: “Basically”

This Week open:

NBC’s Meet the Press open:

Politico headline: ‘The crisis is in Washington’: Overwhelmed border officials urge D.C. to act.

L.A. Times photographer Carolyn Cole observes, “#BorderCrisis on pace for two-decade high as smugglers exploit high hopes for #BidenHarris…This week in the #RGV, I witnessed juveniles as young as 12 crossing in small groups without any parents. #BorderCrisis is real…”

This week in the #RGV, I witnessed juveniles as young as 12 crossing in small groups without any parents. #BorderCrisis is real. More stories by @mollyhf to come this week. https://t.co/atqL4b2SiM pic.twitter.com/TsV4P8O4nb

— Carolyn Cole (@Carolyn_Cole) March 21, 2021

Meanwhile, last night Biden posted a photo of himself with his funereally dressed minder Kamala Harris, bragging, “Two months down.”