Fox News host Juan Williams defended President Joe Biden’s administration in its handling of the migrant crisis at the southern U.S. border during Wednesday’s broadcast of “The Five.”
In a heated exchange with fellow co-hosts, Williams said “the border is not open” but admitted, “there is a problem at the border” that the Biden administration is addressing through “legal” rather than “militaristic” means. (RELATED: Jen Psaki Avoids Saying There Is ‘A Crisis’ At The Border: ‘I Don’t Think We Need To Meet Your Bar Of What We Need To Call It’)
Williams began by saying Congress “needs to get involved” because seeing them pass the coronavirus relief bill Wednesday showed “things can get done by the government.” He then stated “there is a problem at the border,” which has lasted over several Republican and Democratic administrations.
“Biden is trying to deal with it, just as you said. I think he’s trying to deal with it in terms of legal process. So, he’s trying to move away from a militaristic approach or cruel policy approach of separating families from children,” Williams continued. “Biden is looking to the courts. He’s looking to the asylum process. He wants to get things moving quickly, but nobody is coming in. The border is not open!”
Co-host Jeanine Pirro jumped in, asking, “Did you just say the border is not open?” Williams tried to respond, but the conversation became inaudible with multiple people raised their voices.
“Juan is having a hard time defending it because it’s indefensible,” Jesse Watters said once everyone was quiet. “We knew that Joe Biden was going to be a puppet of the radical left, but it turns out he’s a puppet for the drug cartels. Take the politics out of it. The cartels send the migrants one day, and then they shoot the drugs across the other side.”
Watters went on to explain the migrants then “owe the cartels a favor” once they get to the U.S. and have to do what the cartels say or their family members back home might get killed. He concluded by saying Biden “basically abolished ICE” and that ICE arrests were “down 50% last month.”
The Biden administration has said there is not “a crisis at the border,” despite an increase in the number of migrants detained at the southern border since Biden took office. There were nearly 100,000 migrants detained in February, an increase from January’s tally of 78,000.