Biden administration not allowing media inside migrant children facilities, citing COVID concerns

The Biden administration has reportedly closed off media access to migrant children housing facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border, citing coronavirus concerns, the Daily Caller reported on Monday.

In a statement to the news outlet, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency charged with handling migrant children, said, "The Office of Refugee Resettlement is not hosting media tours of unaccompanied children facilities currently due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

"If media tours resume, we will send a media advisory," the spokesperson added.

The news may certainly raise eyebrows, considering the groundswell of criticism leveled at the Biden administration over its decision to reopen a housing facility temporarily activated by the Trump administration in 2019 — a move condemned by leftist immigration activists and Biden himself.

Those on the right were quick to point out the administration's hypocrisy, as were several open-borders activists on the left, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). In response to the news, the progressive lawmaker tweeted, "This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay — no matter the administration or party."

The Biden administration has defended its course of action by arguing it was the best among bad options and insisting that the facility "won't stay open very long."

In further defense of the facility's reopening, White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained that the move was necessary because of complications of the coronavirus pandemic. Evidently, that's the line the administration is sticking with even as it relates to media coverage of the sites. It seems the pandemic is providing perfect cover for the administration's problematic actions.

But the truth is, COVID-19 is not the only contributing factor necessitating the facility's reopening. The problem was largely created by the Biden administration through its consistent messaging of leniency and openness at the border, effectively inviting an unprecedented surge of migrants. Now the administration faces nothing short of a full-blown crisis at the southern border.

"We need to prepare for border surges now," new Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff Timothy Perry recently wrote in a email to agency leadership. "We need to begin making changes immediately. We should privilege action over cost considerations; do what is needed, and the department will work on funding afterward."

Immigration authorities are reportedly expecting thousands more migrant children to flood into the U.S. in the coming months. In hopes of avoiding negative press about overcrowded conditions at facilities or the opening of more facilities, the Biden administration has authorized officials to purchase plane tickets to fly migrant children to their relatives' residences in the U.S.