First Lady Jill Biden, Ed.D., a.k.a. "Dr." Jill Biden, is not a real doctor. As it turns out, she is also not the real leader of a White House task force to reunify migrant children with their families despite numerous claims to the contrary.
"Jill Biden To Lead Task Force To Reunite Separated Immigrant Families," read the headline of a HuffPost story published in late January, several days after Dr. Jill's husband was inaugurated. "Jill Biden Expected To Help Reunite Separated Migrant Families," wrote Forbes. In a virtual chat with a group of young Latinos, the first lady said her office "will be working" on the reunification effort.
Apparently not. According to a Politico report published Tuesday, it was just another phony title. The first lady's office now insists that Dr. Jill has "no formal role" in the effort to reunify migrant children with their families. A more accurate way of putting it, perhaps, is that the first lady no longer wants to be associated with anything related to the unprecedented immigration crisis unfolding at the southern border.
Dr. Jill's flip-flop on the reunification task force has come as a disappointment to activists who hoped the first lady would use her platform to highlight the issue, as opposed to simply pretending to care about it. A lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union told Politico that the first lady's involvement "would be enormously helpful" but that there has been "no concrete progress" thus far.
Dr. Jill's spokesman, Michael LaRosa, said that while the first lady believes migrant children "need to be reunified with their families as soon as possible," she "does not have any formal role" in the effort to make that happen. Dr. Jill "will continue to support the work of the task force," which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, he said.