Biden pushes back amid mounting crisis over border

WASHINGTON: "The border is closed": With those words, a top Biden administration official on Sunday pushed back against fast-mounting criticism that it has bungled immigration policy, spurring an influx of migrants in the biggest crisis to emerge under the new president.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration's message to would-be border-crossers was simple: "Now is not the time to come. Do not come. The journey is dangerous.

"We are building safe, orderly and humane ways to address the needs of vulnerable children," he said on ABC's "This Week."

"Do not come."

But with an estimated 15,000 migrant children or teenagers already in federal custody -- roughly a third of them in facilities meant for adults -- and with the United States on pace to see two million undocumented migrants arrive this year, the problem has become impossible to ignore.

Biden himself vowed on Sunday to visit the border and said he was stepping up the message to migrants to stay home.

"We're in the process of doing it now, including making sure that we reestablish what existed before, which was -- they can stay in place and make their case from their home country," he told reporters.

Bipartisan criticism

Many Republicans, but also a growing number of Democrats, have criticized the administration's border policies.

Mayorkas, appearing on three television networks, insisted that the administration was doing everything it could to address the influx, but said the task was complicated by policies inherited from the Trump administration and by the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We have a plan. We are executing on our plan and we will succeed," the Havana-born Mayorkas said on ABC. "But one thing is also clear, that it takes time."

Mayorkas repeatedly placed blame on Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, who imposed an array of anti-immigration policies.

"The entire system ...was dismantled in its entirety by the prior administration" and had to be rebuilt, Mayorkas said.

He said three new facilities had been opened to handle border arrivals just last week.