Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday Joe Biden's leadership is fixing the immigration crisis – even though a record number of unaccompanied minor migrants arrived at the southern border in March and spikes are expected to continue into the fall.
'The fact is that we're on a good path at the border under the leadership of President Biden,' Pelosi insisted during an event in California.
She added: 'It's about restructuring how we do what is happening there, because we were in a very bad situation under the Trump administration.'
The House speaker is helping push the Democratic narrative that former President Donald Trump and Republicans are to blame for the growing crisis at the southern border.
March, however, saw the most migrant children crossing the border in history, with 18,890 unaccompanied minors being taken into cramped shelters.
The previous record was when around 11,000 children crossed the border in May 2019 when Donald Trump was in office.
The March numbers provided by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Thursday represented a 100% increase in crossings compared to February.
Overall in March, the CBP encountered more than 172,000 people attempting to gain entry along the Southwest border, which represented a 71% increase over February 2021.
These illegal crossings include two Yemeni terrorists and MS-13 gang members sneaking into the U.S. by way of Mexico.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Wednesday the southern border crisis is under control, claiming: 'We're on a good path at the border under the leadership of President Biden'
Her claim comes as data released Thursday shows the number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is spiking in 2021 compared to 2020, which saw a decrease in crossings
Included in the massive spike in illegal immigration were two men from Yemen, a 26-year old (left) and a 33-year-old (right) were intercepted by Custom and Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro Station in Calexico, California, on March 30
Migrants are seen getting out of a boat that they took to traverse the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the United States on Wednesday
Under Biden's presidency, illegal immigration numbers have soared to record highs and some detention facilities have become overcrowded by nearly 2,000% of their mass capacity.
On March 19, Pelosi said Biden has the border situation 'under control'.
She also previously, and again on Wednesday, expressed confidence in Biden's 'humanitarian' approach to addressing the crisis.
Also on critics' minds is the fact Vice President Kamala Harris, who was named border czar last month, has yet to make a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border or any of the facilities labeled 'inhumane,' 'barbaric' and 'horrific' by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Florida Rep. Kat Cammack, a Republican, called out some of her other Democratic colleagues who still refuse to call the situation a 'crisis' – including Biden, who she called the 'trafficker-in-chief' and those within his administration
'I would challenge Representative [Veronica] Escobar to actually call this what it is, a crisis. It's not a situation. It's a crisis,' Cammack told Fox News in an interview Thursday.
'Just 24 hours ago I was there in Mission, Texas,' she said of her trip to the border. 'This is a humanitarian crisis. I can't even in good conscience call President Biden president, I have to call him 'trafficker-in-chief' because these kids are being trafficked.'
'When you have 20,000 children in custody and the border patrol agents are stretched thin to the max and we're watching cartel members taunt our border patrol agents as they're sending these children under 6 years old across the river by themselves, this is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions,' Cammack continued. 'And so, let's call it what it is.'
The CBP's acting commissioner Troy Miller assured the situation is under control.
'CBP has experienced an increase in encounters and arrests. This is not new. Encounters have continued to increase since April 2020, and our past experiences have helped us be better prepared for the challenges we face this year,' Miller said in a statement attached to the new numbers. 'We are committed to balancing the needs of maintain border security, care for those in our custody and keep the American people and our workforce safe.'
It was also revealed on Thursday that Biden's Department of Health and Human Services is spending $60million a week to house the child migrants in 10 shelters across the country.
Figures seen by The Washington Post show the cost of caring for one of these youths is $290 a day, and the 7,700 available beds have already been completely overwhelmed.
Biden also tried to characterize the influx as normal seasonal upticks during his late March press conference.
'It happens every single solitary year. There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March - it happens every year,' Biden said then.
Police register names as a group of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador arrives in the U.S. after crossing the Rio Grande river on Wednesday
A group of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador arrives at a bus terminal in the U.S. after crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico
Families are pouring into the U.S. from Mexico on a daily basis and have pushed crossings up to their highest level in 15 years.
A shocking video of an abandoned migrant boy telling border agents he feared he would be kidnapped and footage of Ecuadorian sisters, aged three and five, being dropped over the wall have exposed the dire situation.
The top House Republican, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, tweeted Thursday, 'President Biden said the surge was seasonal. But the #'s don't lie – 172k migrants were taken into custody last month, a two-decade high.'
Wednesday McCarthy said that he was concerned that among those captures were two Yemeni nationals on a terror watchlist.
McCarthy told Fox News that he requested a classified briefing from the FBI and CIA on the matter and said Harris should attend.
'I know she hasn't been to the border,' McCarthy told Fox. 'I don't know if she's ever been briefing on this, but I think it'd be important that all leaders, because this isn't about Republican or Democrat, this is about the security of our nation. And everybody should be making sure our nation is secure.'
McCarthy's call for Harris to finally address the crisis came as more images emerged of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador crossing the Rio Grande and packing shelters in Texas.
Harris hasn't made a border trip in the 15 days since she was charged with dealing with the root causes of the immigration crisis - a role President Joe Biden described as dealing with the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico, in an attempt to stem the flow.
The migrants who crossed the border are then moved to shelters in Texas that are already overcrowded
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will travel to El Paso and McAllen, Texas on Thursday - holding events that are closed to press.
'Closed press? Remember when President Biden promised transparency?' Republican Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted about the announcement.
McCarthy also chimed in: 'The DHS Secretary is heading to the border today but is denying press access. Americans deserve transparency on the crisis the Admin created.'
Biden also hasn't yet traveled to the southern border.
The Biden administration has tried to push that they're persuing a more human border policy than the administration of former President Donald Trump.
Trump's policies created children being separated from their families, with The New York Times reporting Thursday that the parents of 445 migrant children cannot be found.
The former president had also warned of 'terrorists' coming over the U.S.-Mexico border during his time in office.
We have terrorists coming through the southern border because they find that's probably the easiest place to come through. They drive right in and they make a left,' Trump warned in January 2019.
On Monday, Customs and Border Patrol announced that two unnamed Yemeni men on the terror watch list - one 33, the other 26 - had been detained over the last three months in the Calexico area of California.
'So we know people on the terrorist watch list are coming into America,' McCarthy said, pointing to the announcement. 'How are they coming in? How many do we assume go through that we did not catch? Why were they on the watch list? What were they doing coming into the country? Do we have any intel based upon what did they have planned once they entered the country? Who were they going to meet up with?'
A lost migrant child, crying and scared, was found by a Border Patrol agent on his way home. The boy said he was abandoned by the group he was with
McCarthy said he also requested the FBI-CIA briefing would be shared with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, and his Republican counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The captures were made by CBP agents assigned to the El Centro Station.
CBP said in a statement on Monday that the two men were on a U.S. government watchlist for terrorism suspects, and were also named on a 'no-fly' list.
'Part of the Border Patrol's mission states we will protect the country from terrorists,' said Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino.
'These apprehensions at our border illustrates the importance of our mission and how we can never stop being vigilant in our everyday mission to protect this great country.'
The news was seized upon by Republicans, who are using the current surge in migrant arrivals to attack Joe Biden, and who have always warned that terrorists could be among those entering illegally and evading detection.
Additionally, an El Salvadorean gang member was among the migrants detained by the Border Patrol in the early hours of Wednesday.
The unnamed 28-year-old was described by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as 'a documented MS-13 gang member,' Fox News reported.
A group from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are seen crossing the Rio Grande River into the United States on Wednesday
Migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are seen in a border facility on Wednesday
A group of migrants get off a raft that they used to travel across the Rio Grande River from Mexico into Roma, Texas
A woman and a child are lifted out of a raft after it gets to the United States from Mexico on Wednesday
Guatemalan migrant Ceidy, 31, and her 3 month old baby Bridget touch land after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico on Wednesday
A group of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador arrive in the United States Wednesday
Law enforcement registers a group of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador Wednesday
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (left) told Fox News Channel that he requested a classified briefing on the two Yemeni nationals that were caught coming into the U.S. through Mexico and he invited Vice President Kamala Harris (right) to attend
Vice President Kamala Harris has jetted all over the U.S. without visiting the U.S.-Mexico border
The gang was founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and then mixed with California prison gang culture and was exported to El Salvador. There are currently believed to be around 10,000 MS-13 members in the United States, out of 1.4 million known gang members in the country.
Former President Donald Trump described the group, known for its savagery, as 'animals' and frequently referenced them when discussing migration.
Migrants have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in higher numbers over the past few months, including over 170,000 people in March alone, the largest single-month total in well over a decade.
A large number are unaccompanied minors, which has forced the administration to open its tenth temporary housing facility to accommodate these young arrivals.
The vast majority of adults are immediately sent back to Mexico.
The border patrol say they are currently detaining around 5,000 people a day.
The U.S. government does not release data on terrorist detentions along the border with Mexico: in 2018 the figure was given as six by Axios, and around a dozen by CNN.
In January 2018, a joint report by the Homeland Security and Justice departments stated that Homeland Security had 2,554 'encounters' worldwide with people on a watch list who were trying to travel to the U.S.
Of them, 2,170 were trying to come by air, with 335 by land and the rest by sea.
Migrants, departing from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are seen after crossing the Rio Grande River, in Texas, overnight
The number of migrants trying to cross the Mexican border to the USA jumped to 171,000 in March, the highest monthly number since 2006
In 2019, Trump declared during a Rose Garden speech: 'We have terrorists coming through the southern border because they find that's probably the easiest place to come through. They drive right in and they make a left.'
Todd Bensman, an analyst with the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors less immigration and stronger defenses against terrorist infiltration, estimated in 2019 that around 20 terrorist suspects are detained at the U.S.-Mexico border every year.
The first suspect, aged 33, was apprehended January 29 approximately at 1:10am local time after he tried to cross the border illegally about three miles west from the Calexico Port of Entry.
Agents discovered a cellular phone sim card hidden inside the insole of his shoe.
A second individual, 26, was picked up by agents on March 30 at approximately 11:30pm.
Ceidy, an asylum-seeking migrant mother from Guatemala, kisses her 3-month-old baby Bridget while waiting to be escorted by the U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande River on Wednesday
Children and babies crossed the Rio Grande overnight with their parents in small inflatable rafts to enter the country through Roma, Texas
Migrants, departing from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, are seen crossing the Rio Grande River Wednesday night
Babies and young children accompanied migrants across the Rio Grande River into the United States Wednesday night
Water bottles are passed out to migrants after they crossed the Rio Grande River Wednesday night
A migrant woman holds a young child in her arms after crossing the Rio Grande
A CBP spokesperson contacted by DailyMail.com declined to provide the names of the men.
The government does not disclose how many people are on the no-fly list, although in June 2016 Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said that there were around 81,000 people on the list, of whom fewer than 1,000 were U.S. citizens.
Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, wracked by decades of civil war, is described by UN as suffering from the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Four million people have been forced from their homes.
A group of Republican lawmakers that visited the border in El Paso, Texas, in March said border agents told them during the trip that some people caught crossing the border were on a U.S. terrorism watchlist.
McCarthy traveled to the southern border March 15 and told reporters that after meeting with Border Patrol agents, he had learned that individuals with links to terror organizations were rushing the border.
'It's not just people from Mexico or Honduras or El Salvador,' he said.
'They're now finding people from Yemen, Iran, Turkey. People on the terrorist watch list they are catching, and they're rushing in all at once.'
Republicans have criticized Biden for easing some restrictions put in place by the former president as the number of border crossings has risen in recent months.
The watchlist is maintained by the FBI Terrorism Screening Center.
The list contains 'the identities of those who are known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activities,' according to the FBI.
Overall, few migrants caught crossing the southern border match people on the FBI's terror watchlist, a U.S. official told Reuters.
The libertarian CATO Institute said that from 1975 through 2017, seven people who entered the U.S. illegally from 'special interest' countries — states tied at least loosely to terrorism — were convicted of planning attacks on U.S. soil.
None crossed from Mexico. They came from Canada or jumped ship in U.S. ports, and all before special interest countries were classified as such.
The plots were foiled and no one was hurt.
The only known terrorists who crossed illegally from Mexico in those decades were three ethnic Albanians from Macedonia who came as children with their parents in 1984 and, in their 20s, were arrested in the foiled plot to attack the Fort Dix, New Jersey, Army base in 2007, the CATO study found. They were not from a special-interest country.
Migrants are seen in border facilities, with one man charging his phone, on Wednesday
On Wednesday the White House defended Vice President Kamala Harris for having not yet visited the border, which she is supposedly overseeing.
During Wednesday's briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the vice president's recent travel to Chicago, as opposed to the southern border.
'She hasn't visited the border or Central America or spoken with leaders of El Salvador or Honduras,' New York Post reporter Steven Nelson pointed out to Psaki. 'She was traveling this week, took time to visit a bakery in Chicago. I'm wondering, is she still working on this and can you address the perception that she's sort of quietly backing off while Secretary Mayorkas is pursuing some Trump-era policies?'
While in the Windy City, Harris visited a local bakery.
'I would say the vice president was visiting Chicago to talk about COVID and the importance of communities getting the vaccine when it is available and accessible to them,' Psaki explained.
'While she was there, like many Americans, she got a snack. I think she's allowed to do that.'
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