Reporters Grill Jen Psaki About Border: ‘If This Doesn’t Qualify as a Crisis, What Does?’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki faced a number of questions from reporters Tuesday about the U.S.-Mexico border and previous comments from the Secretary of Homeland Security saying there is not a “crisis” at the border.

The New York Times reported Monday night that “thousands of migrant children are backed up in United States detention facilities” and that there are over 3000 migrant children in custody at the border — reportedly tripling in recent weeks.

At the Tuesday briefing, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins brought up Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ comments and said, “But right now, since it is 3200 unaccompanied migrant children, according to documents from Monday, that’s higher than the peak of the 2019 border crisis… and at that period, there were kids sleeping on floors, they were overcrowded facilities.”

“So when his delegation traveled there, did they see that?” Collins asked.

Psaki started by saying, “we have a different policy than the last administration” and “are not turning kids away at the border.”

“We know there is going to be an increased number of kids coming across the border,” she said. “They are going to do a meeting, of course, and give the president a full rundown of what they saw on the ground, a trip he asked them to take, and I’ll let them do that before we have more specifics.”

Collins questioned when reporters will be able to “go in and see” the conditions. “When can cameras actually get inside those facilities?”

“We’re committed to doing that. I don’t have a timeline for you at this point in time,” Psaki said.

Another reporter followed up by directly asking, “Why has this administration been so reluctant to call it a crisis? With a huge uptick in the number of migrants being detained, including thousands of children, if that doesn’t qualify as a crisis, what does?”

“We think that it’s most important to explain the substantive policy of what’s happening, what the root causes are of why these kids are coming, and what we’re doing to try to solve what is a very challenging circumstance at the border,” she responded.

Earlier on in the briefing, Psaki was asked by another reporter about whether this is a crisis, and said in response, “I don’t think we need to sit here and put new labels on what we have already conveyed is challenging.”

You can watch a clip above, via CBSN.