Reporter Asks Psaki If Biden Administration Needs to ‘Change’ Messaging About ‘Humane Treatment Of Children’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether President Joe Biden needs to change the policy and messaging on unaccompanied minors because “making that point about the humane treatment of children” is motivating parents to send their kids to the border.

Psaki briefed reporters aboard Air Force One while en route to Ohio on Tuesday, during which she fielded several questions about the situation at the southern border of the United States.

One reporter explicitly cited the administration’s policy and message of treating migrant children humanely as an unintended detriment, and repeatedly asked if it should be changed:

Q Is there any consideration to changing the policy related to unaccompanied minors at the border — given the numbers that are now in U.S. custody and how this situation has evolved — to try to change the messaging about those children being received and kept in the United States?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think the messaging will continue to be that: It is not the time to come; it is not a safe journey to make; that we are turning away people at the border. A majority of people are turned away at the border. And — but at the same time, we believe that it is the humane and moral step to — to ensure we are treating these children — that they are in safe places when they come across the border.

So, I’m not sure if you’re asking about —

Q But do you acknowledge that — that by making that point about the humane treatment of children, that there is, perhaps to the ears of a desperate parent, a motivation? Because the child would be received and kept across the border.
So does that require a change?

MS. PSAKI: I think our view is that there are a number of factors here that are pushing families to put their children on buses or to make the journey, including the economic conditions, including crime and corruption, including the two hurricanes that struck the region. Those are factors that our experts feel are the driving factors to children making that journey.

And the step we can take and that we can — we have the, you know, control over taking, of course, is ensuring that we are expediting processing at the border; we’re opening new facilities. We just opened another one in Texas — there will be additional facilities that are opened in the coming days and weeks; and ensuring that we can get these kids moved as quickly as possible from Border Patrol facilities.

Psaki has confronted reporters in the past for seeming to suggest that the administration should turn children away at the border, but this exchange came on the heels of Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn‘s critique that “President Biden has instead emphasized the humane treatment of immigrants, regardless of their legal status.”

Listen above via pool.