Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked, “The D.C. mayor sent the White House a letter asking for National Guard help with migrants that have been bussed here from Texas and Arizona. Is the president going to approve that request for the National Guard?”
JEAN-PIERRE: So to your question on the National Guard, I refer you to the Department of Defense. They will have that answer for you. We have been in regular touch with Mayor Bowser and her team, and said this before. I said this last week about Republicans using migrants as a political tool, and that is shameful, and that is just wrong.
There is a process in place for managing migrants at the border. This is not it– what they’re doing currently. That includes expelling migrants as required by court order under Title 42, transferring them to ICE custody, and placing them in the care of local NGOs as they await further processing.
Again, so what Republicans are doing, the way that they’re meddling in the process and using migrants as a political pawn is just wrong.
DOOCY: So the White House’s preference would be for small towns in Texas and Arizona to have to take care of these migrants rather than a large metropolitan city like Washington, D.C.
JEAN-PIERRE: That is not what I said. That is not what I said. I said that—
DOOCY: That is what you said. You said you think that people are using migrants.
JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, they are. They’re sending migrants to big cities on purpose, using them as a political ploy.
DOOCY: So if they don’t go to big cities, where should they go?
JEAN-PIERRE: There’s a process. I just laid it out.
DOOCY: There’s a process, and they come to a big city, and now the mayor needs the National Guard?
JEAN-PIERRE:: That’s because Republicans are using, they’re using migrants who are coming here for who knows, because they’re dealing with humanitarian issues back in their country. They’re coming here for a better life, and they are being used, Peter. They are being used by Republican governors. That is what’s happening.
DOOCY: Does any of this just make the president want to say, ‘This is causing a lot of burdens on small cities, big cities. Maybe I should just close the border?’
JEAN-PIERRE: What I’m saying is what Republicans are doing is wrong, and there’s a process in place, and we should follow the process. There’s a legal process in place, and they should follow it.
