Is It True That Joe Biden Has Yet to Visit the US-Mexico Border

Joe Biden visited Arizona for the first time since becoming president earlier this month. However, he only visited a new computer chip plant near Phoenix seen to boost the economy and compete with China in chip production. He drew flak for not stopping along the U.S.-Mexico border.

This raises the question of whether or not Biden has ever visited the border since being elected president. Verify fact-checked this, and as it turned out, he still has not.

Verify searched White House statements, the president's public schedule, and news reports to look for any record of Biden going to the U.S.-Mexico border, and found none.

When asked if he had any plans to visit the southern border during a CNN Town Hall in October 2021, Biden said that he was too busy to go and visit the area.

"I guess I should go down, but the whole point of it is I have not had a whole lot of time to get down," the president noted.

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki then stated after the CNN Town Hall that "he does not need a visit to the border to know what a mess was left by the last administration. That's his view."

Joe Biden May Have Not Visited the U.S.-Mexico Border, But Kamala Harris Has

While Joe Biden himself has not yet visited the border, Vice President Kamala Harris has.

Biden appointed Harris to oversee migration issues when he became president. Harris herself has actually gone to the border during an official visit to El Paso, Texas.

According to CNN, she visited the border in June 2021 after visiting Mexico and Guatemala, where many of the migrants flocking the border came from.

At the conclusion of her trip at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, Harris noted that there were girls without their parents but were still full of hope.

She said that this reminded her that "this issue cannot be reduced to a political issue.

"We're talking about children. We're talking about families. We're talking about suffering," she added.

Harris acknowledged that the "root causes" of migration must be addressed and that the approach should be thoughtful and effective, adding that the United States should "not lose sight of the fact that we're talking about human beings."

Human Rights Groups Say Joe Biden Should Not Follow Donald Trump's Playbook on Migration

While Joe Biden received flak over immigration issues from the Republicans, human rights groups are also criticizing him for following Trumpian policies like Title 42.

Human Rights Watch has said that Biden continued using and even expanding some of Trump's policies, therefore violating several U.S. and international human rights laws.

Human Rights Watch hit Biden for considering reviving the so-called "transit ban," which was one of Trump's many anti-asylum policies.

It banned people from seeking asylum if they had not already done so in one of the countries they passed through on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The group warned that continuing down this path would likely lead to more losses of life as these immigration deterrence policies fail to stop people from migrating to seek safety since it would compel migrants to cross even more dangerous areas of the border.

The group added that the Biden administration should instead respect the right to seek asylum and make safer pathways to migration.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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