Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy curiously asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday why the Biden administration wasn’t conducting pregnancy tests on Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The White House has been heavily criticized by progressives and human rights groups over the treatment of asylum-seeking migrants at the southern border, specifically over images of Border Patrol agents seemingly terrorizing migrants and the administration deporting thousands of Haitian refugees from the country.
At the same time, Republicans and conservative media are furious with President Joe Biden for allowing thousands of Haitian migrants—largely family units, couples, and pregnant women—to enter the United States in order to ease the pressure at the border. Border agents granting entry to these migrants are reportedly providing them with a notice to appear in immigration court at a later date.
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During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Doocy confronted Psaki on the release of Haitian migrants into the country. And he wondered aloud why the administration wasn’t confirming the validity of pregnant women’s claims.
“We’re being told by our people on the ground that you're releasing pretty much all family units. Couples where the woman says that she is pregnant, or single women who say that they are pregnant and that no one has to actually take a pregnancy test unless they want to,” he declared.
“Are you suggesting that you don't believe when women say they're pregnant?” Psaki mockingly asked Doocy. “Is that a big issue, we think, at the border?”
“I'm not in charge of keeping the border secure," the Fox News reporter fired back.
“Do you think pregnant women are posing a big threat to the border?” Psaki wondered aloud. “Is that a big issue?"
“You tell me,” Doocy retorted.
"I'm not aware of pregnant women being a big issue of concern to people at the border," the press secretary responded. “What I will note for you, Peter, is that, as I said earlier, there is a process if people cannot be expelled under Title 42 for a range of reasons.”
She added: “Some of that is that countries they came from or other countries, including Mexico, may not be accepting families with children under the age of seven. They are placed in removal proceedings. Those removal proceedings require them to either go to a detention facility or require them to go get a notice to appear—including their biometric data—and otherwise so that we can ensure where they are.”
Title 42, meanwhile, is the little-used health provision that the Trump administration turned to last year in order to refuse entry to migrants and refugees at the southern border. Biden has since drawn fire from immigration advocates and liberals for attempting to utilize the same law in order to reject and expel thousands of immigrants.
