Here is KJP with a pretty pure expression of the White House’s line that it is border hawks’ complaining about the open border who are responsible for migrants thinking, erroneously, that they can come to the border and gain entry illegally:
.@PressSec: “The fact is that the removal of Title 42 does not mean the border is open. Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply doing the work of these smugglers who again, are spreading misinformation and which are which is very dangerous.” pic.twitter.com/06g5joVeYK
— The Hill (@thehill) December 20, 2022
Of course, it is the reality that migrants can come to the border and gain entry illegally that is driving the continued flow, rather than critics’ pointing this out.
This is an eye-popping report from CIS, by the way:
In a “social phenomenon never seen before in the history of the region”, according to one media account, indigenous Miskitos, Tawhkas, Perch, and Garifunas peoples in Honduras began vacating their traditional subsistence lifestyles in December and heading for the American border.
Also in December, U.S.-bound migrants from 40 countries so overwhelmed the small southern Mexican town of San Pedro Tapanatepec in Oaxaca State that it declared bankruptcy and was forced to shutter a massive government shelter on December 17 and expel more than 15,000 immigrants onto a desolate highway with no food or water. All headed north.
In Nicaragua, tens of thousands of young men and women in December began forming lines three-days long to get the passports necessary to exit the country and head for the U.S. border. The Managua scenes indicated a mass exodus so significant that one prominent Nicaraguan economist lamented in a local newspaper that “It breaks the soul to see the children with their backpacks . . . to see how the country bleeds to death. We are losing the best. They are leaving by the thousands.”