For the second time in two weeks, President Joe Biden incited backlash from congressional Democrats after the White House announced it is weighing whether to reenact a Trump-era immigration policy.
Democratic congressmen are attacking Biden's potential border crisis solution, which would bring back detention of families that cross the border illegally, the New York Times reported. Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) called the idea "callous and inhumane," while Rep. Maxwell Frost (D., Fla.) was "disgusted and disappointed" at the possibility of reinstating family detentions.
The report comes less than a week after Biden angered members of his own party for supporting a Republican-backed resolution to block Washington, D.C.'s criminal justice reform, which would lessen penalties for violent crimes.
Talks of a new policy come as Title 42, a Trump policy that allows border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the border, ends in May. Without indicating whether such a policy would take effect, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden "wants to build an immigration system that is secure, orderly, and humane."
This consideration from the White House marks an abrupt shift from Biden's past criticism of family detention policies during the Trump administration.
In 2020, Joe Biden took to Twitter to object to the Trump administration’s handling of illegal immigrants. "Children should be released from ICE detention with their parents immediately," Biden wrote. "This is pretty simple, and I can’t believe I have to say it: Families belong together."
Southern Border Patrol encounters increased by 38 percent between fiscal years 2021-22, with 2.4 million encounters in 2022.