Liberals are fuming at President Biden for the second time in a week, after a report that he’s considering reviving the border policy which would hold migrant families in detention facilities – breaking one of his central campaign pledges.
“Locking immigrant families and children into cages along the border is dangerous, ineffective, and wrong,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), a freshman House progressive from the state’s 35th congressional district, The Hill reports. “It is dangerous and wrong to incarcerate refugee children, regardless of political party.”
Casar and other Democrats were reacting in part to a report in the The New York Times that said Biden was considering bringing back elements of Trump’s detainee policy. Progressives and a host of interest groups argued that Biden promised a different path forward on the issue. Those are now at risk of being unraveled, they say.
“We can’t go back,” Casar said, suggesting that Biden’s potential embrace of ‘kids in cages’ (which were built during the Obama-Biden administration) would be “caving to anti-immigrant fear mongering,” and effectively mimicking the GOP playbook.
“It’s infuriating” said Detention Watch Network advocacy director, Setareh Ghandehari, in a comment to The Hill. “He (Biden) specifically made several statements condemning Trump’s use of family detention and family separation and promised to do something different and specifically end family detention,” she continued.
“And what we’ve seen is a continual walking back of his promises.”
Last week Biden infuriated Democrats after flip-flopping on a plan to support the DC City Council’s plan to introduce a crime bill that would reduce penalties for violent crimes.
As Axios notes, some Democrats are casting Biden’s moves as a betrayal, particularly because they didn’t receive advance notice of the White House’s thinking before it became public.
“The lack of communication on immigration-related policy decisions is an insult,” Sen. Bob Mendez (D-NJ) told the outlet. “It would be like making civil rights legislative ideas and thoughts without checking with the Congressional Black Caucus.”
More via Axios;
In the House, Rep. Ra?l M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said a return to border detentions would be “callous and inhumane,” while Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said he was “disgusted and disappointed” the White House would consider such a plan.White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre would not confirm or deny possible border detentions, but said Biden “wants to build an immigration system that is secure, orderly, and humane.”Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas held a call with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday to try to smooth things over, several members on the call said. But Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) said afterward: “We haven’t resolved anything.”
The outlet suggests that the outrage has something to do with Biden’s new Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, who hasn’t made himself as available to progressive lawmakers as his predecessor, Ron Klain.
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