Buttigieg defends Biden's handling of migrant crisis at southern border

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has defended Joe Biden's handling of the southern border crisis.

During an NBC News interview, Buttigieg was questioned regarding the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, especially in Texas where the Department of Defense recently reinforced a National Guard deployment, the Daily Wire reports.

“Let me ask you about what we are seeing at the border. Recently, the administration sent 800 active-duty troops to the Texas border to deal with the surge in migrants, some record numbers this past week. Was the Biden administration caught off guard by this latest surge of migrants?” questioned “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.

“Well, what you saw was the administration, as always, responding as needed to conditions being proactive where necessary,” Buttigieg responded.

Q: "Was the Biden administration caught off guard by this latest surge of migrants?"

BUTTIGIEG: "What you saw was the administration, as always, responding as needed..."

Q: "Were you caught off guard though?"

BUTTIGIEG: "The president did what needed to be done." pic.twitter.com/llontN4RTT

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 24, 2023

Welker persisted, asking if he was caught off guard.

“Look, the president did what needed to be done. And often that involves a rapid response, like the rapid response that this administration directed. But also what we see is a political dynamic where some people seem to prefer that the problem continue, rather than to do something to actually solve it,” Buttigieg responded.

“And I have to say, that kind of reminds me of what’s going on in the funding fight, where some of the very same people who would line up to take a shot at the administration over something like air travel disruption, are also trying to disrupt us from training more air traffic controllers,” He continued, making a reference to the upcoming budget battle in Congress that could potentially lead to a government shutdown.

Amid news of illegal border crossings surging to almost 9,000 per day and a state of emergency being declared in Eagle Pass, Texas, the new military deployment was made public.

Statistics released by the government last week revealed that national authorities had interactions with migrants over 304,000 times in August, a figure that exceeded the previous month's total by more than 50,000.