Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced on Monday the White House will keep its ban on legal international travel despite also maintaining the large influx of illegal aliens who are being escorted into the United States by government agents and concerns about the Delta COVID-19 variant.
“With the Delta variant, we will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point for a few reasons,” Psaki said during the Monday press briefing. “The more transmissible Delta variant is spreading both here and around the world. Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and appear likely to continue in the weeks ahead.”
Psaki also cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s newest guidelines “advise[ing] Americans against travel to the United Kingdom…given the surge in cases.”
“They will evaluate and make recommendations based on health data,” Psaki said.
#BREAKING: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announces the U.S. will maintain all travel restrictions and NOT be lifting any of them anytime soon because of the Delta variant.
The Biden administration is continuing its policy of family separations #LoveIsNotTourism pic.twitter.com/cuOy6ZRsRR
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 26, 2021
When a reporter pressed Psaki on how “keeping people from foreign countries out protect people in the U.S.” where “the Delta variant is already dominant,” Psaki punted the question and blamed government health officials for the decision.
“I’m not a doctor or a medical expert. I think that that would best be posed to a member of the CDC or one of our doctors,” Psaki said. “But I think their decision was made based on the fact that the Delta variant is more transmissible and is spreading around the world. Yes, it is the dominant variant here in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that having more people who have the Delta variant is the right step.”
While Psaki touted the ongoing travel restrictions as another way to fight the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, thousands of illegal aliens poured across the border in what continues to be an escalating migration and humanitarian crisis due to lack of border enforcement.
More groups of migrants walking through the border fence here in Del Rio where they are loaded into waiting border patrol buses. Most of these men are from Haiti. Border Patrol has several buses and vans here to deal with this massive group that started out 350+ in size @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/BIC9vhEkYv
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 25, 2021
NEW: A large group of single men, mostly Haitians, were just walked through the border fence by Border Patrol here in Del Rio, TX. They are part of a huge group of 350+ that arrived here. The men are being placed on a bus and will be taken away for processing. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/rzqRQ3oN6Y
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 25, 2021
NEW: An absolutely massive group of 350+ migrants have arrived at the border fence here in Del Rio. They are from all around the world. Haiti. Africa. Brazil. Colombia. Very few from Northern Triangle. More are streaming down the path from the Rio Grande after crossing. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/Cd4eHr7zCe
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 25, 2021
Just last week, the number of COVID-positive migrants held by the U.S. government in the Rio Grande Valley increased by 900 percent compared to the previous 14 months. This follows months of inconsistent testing and surging COVID cases in government-run emergency facilities housing migrant children.
The news came shortly before new data indicated that border apprehensions have passed 1 million for the first time since 2006. While the Biden administration claims this influx is due to a seasonal rise and subsequent fall in illegal crossings, the number of aliens making their way across the U.S. border is on track to break the decades-old record of 1.6 million border apprehensions in 2000.
More than 1 million border apprehensions so far in FY2021. The last time we had more than a million apprehensions in a single year was 2006. And we still have 3 months to go in the FY. pic.twitter.com/D8l86oMTcS
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) July 16, 2021
