For over a decade, the United States has grappled with the overcrowding of child migrants in border facilities—a humanitarian crisis that only worsened after former President Donald Trump's Justice Department began classifying all border crossings as criminal offenses, rather than civil ones.
This led to the mass separation of children from their families, many of whom still have yet to be reunited.
Now, President Joe Biden is grappling with a humane, efficient way to process child migrants, especially in the face of the pandemic that's killed over 500 thousand Americans.
Just days after Democrats passed the latest wave of pandemic relief, Republican lawmakers—led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)—jetted to El Paso, Texas to hold a press conference at the border, slamming Biden's immigration policies so far.
Watch below.
McCarthy said:
"It's worse than a crisis. I thought I would see a crisis, but this is really a human heartbreak."
Republicans frequently dismissed humanitarian concerns at border facilities during Trump's administration, mocking Democrats like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for calling them concentration camps.
With the humanitarian crisis continuing under Biden, some have questioned the sincerity of Republicans' outrage, and subsequently their intent to do something about it.
MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff noted this in a recent discussion with MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace.
Soboroff, who specializes in border issues and recently released a book about Trump's family separation policy, called Republicans out for what he said was fake concern for a real crisis.
Watch below.
Soboroff said:
"Honestly, it's been frustrating as a reporter who covers this to watch Republicans go down there and talk about the so called Biden border crisis, use the children as political pawns, saying they shouldn't be in that situation and and advocating literally, absolutely nothing."
He continued:
"I think that anybody can see that if you look at this closely, it's frustrating, it's discouraging, we have both Democrats and Republicans talking about a crisis at the border, but it seems like ... the President and the Biden Administration are the ones looking for solutions and Republicans are looking for press conferences."
Soboroff is one of the few journalists who's seen one of these child detention facilities in person in 2018, describing it as "shocking" and a "child prison."
People largely agreed on his critiques of Republicans' motives.
Others called B.S. on McCarthy as well.
McCarthy also baselessly claimed that people from the terrorist watch list were coming in over the southern border from Middle Eastern countries.
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