Things got heated on Fox News on Sunday when host Chris Wallace confronted White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about the lack of transparency in the Joe Biden administration when it comes to border facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The only way we know how bad conditions are for some 5,000 minors in his Border Patrol facilities is because of these pictures that members of Congress have released on their own,” Wallace said. “Jen, these kids are living in these conditions now.
They’re not living in these conditions some indeterminate time from now when the president says everything will be fixed, so why not allow reporters and camera crews in on a pool basis based domain safely to show the American people what’s happening in those border patrol facilities right now?”
“Chris, we are absolutely committed to that, the president is committed to that, I’m committed to that, Secretary Mayorkas is committed to that,” she responded, causing Wallace to interject by saying, “when?”
“We want to provide access into the border patrol facility,” Psaki said. “We are mindful of the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic. We want to keep these kids safe, keep the staff safe, but we are absolutely committed to transparency and providing access to media to the border patrol facilities, and we are working to get that done as soon as we can.”
“But just to clarify, you allowed a camera crew in to see the HHS facilities, but we are talking about here are the Border Patrol facilities, the detention cells, you know there is a law that they are not allowed to be there for more than 72 hours, many of them are there for ten-day,” Wallace fired back. “At this point, in terms of allowing access to Border Patrol facilities for reporters, you are being less transparent than the Trump administration.”
“Well, first of all, Chris, the Trump administration was turning away kids at the border, sending them back on the treacherous journey, or they were ripping kids from the arms of their parents,” Psaki replied. “We are not doing that. We are committed to allowing cameras into the Border Patrol facilities, absolutely.”