The White House, under fire over its use of migrant childcare centers that Democrats ran into under former President Donald Trump, noted on Thursday that the facilities provide educational services – even as schools nationwide struggle to reopen.
Asked about the increase in migrants at the border – as well as the progressive setback of the Biden administration through the use of detention centers, White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the effort as humane.
“What is happening now is that there are children fleeing persecution, from threats in their own countries, traveling alone, without guidance to the border. And our focus is to approach it from humanity and with safety in mind,” she told reporters at a White House briefing Thursday.
Psaki further said that children are processed as soon as possible by Customs and Border Protection, ideally within three days, and then transferred to health care and human services facilities where they wait to be placed with selected families.
NYC SCHOOLS OFFICE OF CHANNEL, NOTE COVID-19 PERSONAL TOLL
She then explained that a new HHS facility, the one that provoked hypocritical accusations about past allegations that ‘children were held in cages’ during the Trump administration, was opened because children had to apply social distance measures and other COVID 19 protocols had to follow.
The new space has been “renovated. There are educational services there. There are health services and medical services.”
“Our best option, we believe, is to have these children processed through HHS facilities, where there are COVID protocols, where they are safe, where they have access to educational and medical care. There are very few good options here, and we have chose the one we thought was best. ‘
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks at a White House press conference on Thursday, February 25, 2021, in Washington. (Associated Press)
While Biden’s administration continues to ensure that these educational facilities are operational, Psaki and other officials continue to maintain their position on personal training.
The administration has shifted its stance on everything from changing timelines for reopening to concerns about how many days a week students can return.
The White House has faced increasing pressure in recent weeks to reopen schools as parents are exhausted due to delays due to the resistance of teachers’ unions, despite a green light from federal health officials.
The pressure only increased after dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said it would be ‘optimal’, but not essential, that all teachers be vaccinated before returning to the classroom.
Biden, a friend of the teachers’ unions, refrained from using his influence to destroy group discord in some of the largest cities in the country.
Asked about the resistance Thursday on ABC’s “The View”, Psaki said the government’s focus was on returning children “safely” to school.
“We are confident that our schools can reopen, that we can reopen them safely and that we can do so quickly,” she said, adding that the White House believes that vaccinations “for teachers – and half of the states in the country actually does – but it should not be a prerequisite. ‘
“Masking and social distance can be a part of it,” she went on to say that the president was committed to getting schools the money they would need to make the necessary changes to get through his $ 1.9 billion again. Offer COVID-19 Emergency Relief Package.
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In the same interview, Psaki was pressured about migration detention centers and the setback on them.
She promised that the facilities would be used for the benefit and protection of the children.
“We had to have educational services so that we could have legal services and medical and health services and that the children there could be treated humanely until we could find proper homes and family placements for these children,” she told the program.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.