White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday put on a master class in confusion:
The spokeswoman for the administration that refused to call a border crisis a border crisis, and lobbied for legislation that encouraged the illegal immigration that created the border crisis that supposedly isn’t a crisis, is now blaming the governor of Texas for humanely offering transportation to sanctuary cities to those who came over the border illegally.
Jean-Pierre insisted that what Gov. Greg Abbott really should have done to encourage border security is tell his state’s senators to pass the immigration legislation that partially encouraged the border crisis that supposedly isn’t a crisis in the first place.
Got that?
Yes, I can see why you might be baffled. In fact, those weren’t the exact words Jean-Pierre used when appearing on CNN Tuesday morning to discuss Democrat mayors in major cities complaining that Abbott, a Republican, is transporting illegal immigrants where they want to go instead of keeping them in Texas.
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But that was the takeaway after Jean-Pierre was confronted on CNN with the words of Democratic mayors who are frustrated with bearing the burden of the Biden administration’s decisions about allowing untold numbers of so-called “asylum seekers” into the country:
“The federal government said to New York City, ‘We’re not going to do our job. You do our job. You take care of 4,000 people a week, Eric,’” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in one clip, according to a CNN transcript.
“When you’re talking about 10 percent of the budget to allocate for cities on this, that’s unsustainable. When we have every single hotel room in the city full of migrants that have arrived, that’s unsustainable,” said Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver in another.
Do you support “sanctuary cities?”
“An international and federal crisis that local governments are being asked to subsidize, and this is unsustainable,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago in yet a third.
Since the beginning of President Joe Biden’s administration, Republicans have been asking Democrats to realize the proportions of the border crisis. Now, Democrats are asking the White House to do the same thing.
“CNN This Morning” co-host Audie Cornish asked what Jean-Pierre’s response to this was.
KJP’s response, in essence: Abbott needs to suck it up and pound sand. Offense meant to be taken, Greg:
KJP says it’s “shameful” that Abbott is humanely transporting illegal immigrants to the Sanctuary Cities where Democrat politicians said they would be welcomed. pic.twitter.com/yPtmafv9dR
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 2, 2024
“So here’s my response. It is shameful that a Republican governor — Gov. Abbott in Texas — is using migrants as a political stunt. That’s what he’s been doing … and the busing of migrants, the putting them on flights. It is shameful that is occurring. And instead of — if the governor really, truly wants to deal with this issue he should talk to other senators in his state and actually ask them to work with us.
“Look, what we’re seeing right now is negotiations happening on the Senate side to talk about how do we come up with a bipartisan agreement to deal with border security,” she continued. “There’s a reason why the president put that in his emergency ask, right — in the national security supplemental ask because he thought it was incredibly important.
“In a couple of weeks, we’re about to hit three years — three years since the president put forward an immigration comprehensive legislation — put that forward to Congress and nothing was done on it,” she continued.
First, let’s just get this straight: Does this mean that Democrats don’t want “sanctuary cities” anymore? Because we’d be happy if the White House were to clarify this one. I thought everyone was welcome, no?
Second, it’s worth noting that the “emergency ask” Jean-Pierre referred to was in response to yet another request for aid to Ukraine, and it only came about after Democratic mayors began complaining — rather loudly, in fact — about the number of migrants being bused to their cities.
There’s no evidence the migrants wouldn’t have made it to “santuary cities” like New York and Chicago, anyway, given that those cities were their likely intended destinations, But the White House wanted to teach Gov. Abbott a lesson about keeping quiet about the crisis that dare not speak its name, so now Jean-Pierre is making it sound like the migrants are being shanghaied onto buses and planes. (Spoiler alert: they’re not.)
As for Congress not moving forward on “immigration comprehensive legislation,” one is surprised that even Audie Cornish — or anyone else at CNN, for that matter — could stifle a laugh, given that it’s difficult to tell whether Jean-Pierre is actually serious or just being a smart aleck.
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which can be more accurately described as an amnesty package, had no chance of going anywhere unless the Democrats were willing to nuke the filibuster. However, it did send a signal to potential migrants that America’s borders were open to all comers after four years of President Donald J. Trump.
The “security” measures put forth by the Biden administration, furthermore, were laughable sops that every soft-on-illegals politician puts forward as a way of telling voters, OK, we’re gonna give everyone here a path to citizenship — but now we’re gonna get real about the border. Seriously! Why don’t you trust us?
Americans don’t trust Democrats on immigration because politicians like Joe Biden and his obsequious mouthpiece, Karine Jean-Pierre, refuse to call a border crisis a crisis, but insist politicians like Greg Abbott — who treat it like a crisis — deal with the crisis by telling his state’s Republican senators to pass legislation that played a part in causing the crisis in the first place.
It’s an outrageous suggestion when you put it like that instead of the word salad that came out of KJP’s mouth Tuesday morning, but apparently CNN is just the place where one can get away with it if one’s party affiliation is the correct one.
It’s not going to fly in Texas — and probably not in Chicago, Denver or NYC, either.
