#shorts On 3/7/2023, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “Reporter: Just another follow-up on immigration. Not asking about the detaining migrant families at all or any rumors around that. But just given what we’ve seen from the White House in recent months, including the new asylum rule, is this basically an acknowledgment that without legislation from Congress, the policies that the President previously opposed, he now thinks are necessary in conjunction with some of those legal pathways that you mentioned?

KJP: So let me just — there’s a couple of things that I want to say about that. A lot of people have compared what the President is doing as either extending what Trump did or being very Trump-like, and I just want to make sure that that is not — that is not what is happening here.

What we saw in this last administration — the administration before us — was a gutting of the immigration system. That is what they led with, and that’s what they did.

And a couple of things that we had to fix in this administration these last two years:

Trump tried to deport DREAMers; we went to court to protect them.

Trump ripped babies from their mother’s arms; we’re reuniting those children with their families, with 600 families reunited thus far.

Trump funneled billions of dollars from military to build a useless wall, and what we did is we stopped that wall construction and returned the money to support military schools and also equipment.

Trump banned asylum, forcing more people to try to enter unlawfully. We’ve expanded legal pathways for immigration, and unlawful migration is down. I just gave two pieces of data to show that.

Trump tore down America’s refugee system. And what we are doing — we’re rebuilding it and have a set of goal of resettling up to 125- — 125,000 refugees this year alone.

Trump cut off critical assistant to stabilize the Western Hemisphere, and we restarted that assistance to help address the root cause — causes, like economic collapse, that are driving people to flee.

Migration, again — and I mentioned this stat already — migration from countries where — where we — we’re seeing root causes — where there — our root causes work is focused — is focused down by 71 percent since last year.

So, that is — so, that is what we have been able to do in this past two years and how we have been able to try to fix something that the last administration has decimated.

Reporter: But given the pieces that are still in use or have been revived, is — is that sort of an acknowledgment that they are now necessary or deemed necessary —

KJP: No, absolutely not.

Reporter: — by this administration?

KJP: No, absolutely not. From day one, the President has put forth a bill that would expand legal pathways for imm- — for immigration, increased border security, making sure that we limit illegal immigration.

The President is using the tools that are before him to try to deal with an issue that we’re seeing here.

We have said over and over again: If Republicans in Congress would come and work with us to deal with this issue, we can get it done, we can get it fixed, instead of the political stunts that they’re doing.

other clips of this published longer video is here: https://youtu.be/McmWsxDF96E
Acknowledgment: policies that previously opposed, he now thinks are necessary?