MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff Hits Biden’s Departure from ’30-Plus Years of Deterrence and Punishment’ at the Border

MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff has not gone soft on reporting on the complicated issues surrounding the US Southern border and the steady flow of undocumented immigrants coming up from Central America.

Soboroff earned well-deserved praise for his tireless reporting on the child separation policies put in place by the Trump Administration. And in the event that anyone thought that he would be any less rigorous under the Biden Administration, the early evidence shows they would appear to be wrong — given his less than charitable commentary on the events of recent days.

Amid an outcry of zero media access and a lack of White House transparency at the border, Joe Scarborough asked Soboroff about the purpose of holding a media event at an “aspirational” border facility and not in the areas that are overwhelmed to the degree that many are calling it a crisis.

“What the goal wasn’t was to show the problem, show it clearly, and show it transparently, frankly,” Soboroff replied. “But that’s not Donna, Texas, where there’s over a thousand percent overcrowding in their processing center today,” he added. “It’s certainly not Yuma, Arizona, where I’m on my way to, the second most crowded sector along the border in those processing facilities.”

“And really, it doesn’t do much to explain to us what a fair, safe, and orderly immigration system looks like, that the administration says, rhetorically, that they want to set up.” The immediate inspection of border facilities was a short-term issue, as Soboroff pointed out, before noting the bigger, more long-term questions that have arisen.

“How did they depart from 30-plus years of deterrence and punishment, that included Barack Obama’s presidency?” he asked. “Trump, obviously, worse than ever before with family separations,” he continued, “And Biden, who is still using some of the same types of facilities along the border to hold kids that, of course, nobody was happy about during the previous administration, nor during the Obama administration.”

The AP’s Jonathan Lemire followed up by noting that Soboroff is as big an expert on the complex issues of border policies, which he gracefully deflected to his fellow guest Roberto Lovato, who opened by noting he is the first Central American guest to appear on TV to discuss these very Central American issues since 2018.

Lovato talked about the need for something of a Marshall Plan to address the corrupt nature of many Central American elected leaders and the role that US humanitarian aid — much of which was cut by Trump — has played in supporting leaders who have largely lined their pockets instead of addressing economic and broad security for its citizens, which has largely fueled the “caravans of migrants” that have approached the US border via Mexico.

Watch above via MSNBC.