Last week, Katie wrote about memos going out authorizing overwhelmed US border officials to mass release illegal immigrants without any processing. "The memo says that migrants can allowed into the country on parole — a process typically reserved for 'urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit' — if CBP faces overcrowding. The memo calls the practice 'parole with conditions' as migrants are required to make an appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or request a Notice to Appear by mail...Under a parole release, migrants are rapidly released into the country, do not get an alien registration number and do not receive a court date," per Fox News reporting.
By the next day, a federal judge had intervened to block those release orders. But at the White House, press secretary Karine Jean Pierre flat-out denied that such things were taking place at all:
Jean-Pierre: "The claims that CBP is allowing or encouraging mass release of migrants is just categorically false. That is not what's occurring, that is not what's happening." pic.twitter.com/QkgJ4oEonl
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 12, 2023
Categorically false, she said, speaking for the president and his administration. But Fox's Bill Melugin personally witnessed said mass releases, and recorded the receipts:
We’ve been reporting on mass releases taking place at this spot in Brownsville for over a year now. It’s not new. Anyone claiming mass releases aren’t taking place is blatantly lying. https://t.co/1KqMhgcGP3
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) May 12, 2023
Perhaps Jean Pierre was referring specifically to mass releases without any meaningful processing or court dates being the phenomenon that was supposedly not occurring? Well, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas criticized the judge's ruling in that case, on national television:
A federal judge yesterday stripped your ability to mass release migrants without court dates, do you plan to appeal?
— Chad Gilmartin (@ChadGilmartinCA) May 12, 2023
MAYORKAS: “It’s a very HARMFUL ruling” pic.twitter.com/E4pPNtVpGx
The judicial decision he called "very harmful" was specifically about the mass 'parole' releases Jean Pierre denied were happening at all. Unsurprisingly, as it turns out, Mayorkas' denunciation was a radical statement but an accurate reflection of the Biden administration's policy. Jean Pierre's categorical assertion was a lie:
The administration insisted last week that it was not conducting mass releases https://t.co/htMksZC8QX
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) May 15, 2023
.@PressSec last week : “Claims that CBP is encouraging or allowing mass release of migrants is just categorically false. That is not what’s occurring.”
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) May 15, 2023
Thursday alone, 6,000+ migrants released without a court date - and admin is arguing in federal court it needs these releases. https://t.co/e2kXQthYZM
Nothing this administration says about the border, in particular, should be accepted or believed at face value. Nothing. If and when Peter Doocy challenges Jean Pierre on her latest border crisis falsehood, will she once again get snippy and tell him to cool it with the "dramatics," or whatever?