The White House admitted Wednesday they did not know if President Joe Biden had ever visited the Southern border to demonstrate his commitment to border security.
“I will have to look back in my history books and check the times he’s been to the Southern border,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in response to a question from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy during the daily White House briefing.
It remains unclear whether Biden has ever been to the Southern border, as he spent most of his political career as a U.S. senator representing Delaware.
Psaki reminded reporters that Biden worked as vice president in the Obama administration to reduce “root causes” of immigration, but she was unaware if he ever visited the border.
“I can check and see when the last time or when he may have been,” Psaki replied.
Haitian migrants use a dam to cross to and from the United States from Mexico on September 17, 2021, in Del Rio, Texas. Thousands of Haitian migrants have assembled under and around a bridge in Del Rio presenting the Biden administration with a fresh and immediate challenge as it tries to manage large numbers of asylum-seekers who have been reaching U.S. soil. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Before he was president, Biden voiced support for border security.
In 2006, Biden boasted in a South Carolina speech that he was in support of a border fence.
“Folks, I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats – and some of you won’t like it – I voted for 700 miles of fence,” Biden said during a speech in South Carolina.
Biden went on to say that unless the political system in Mexico changed and businesses were punished for hiring illegals, a 40-foot high fence was merely “window dressing.”
“Now, I know I’m not supposed to say it that bluntly, but they’re the facts, they’re the facts,” he said.