KJP Claims Biden Is “Stopping the Flow at the Border” Amid Historic Border Crisis

On August 30, 2023, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy confronted Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre with a blunt question using the words of one of the administration’s own allies: New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Doocy quoted Adams’s statement that “any plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border is a failed plan” and then asked the obvious follow-up: “So, why aren’t you guys stopping the flow at the border?”

Jean-Pierre’s response was remarkable for its sheer audacity: “We are stopping the flow at the border.” She then proceeded to blame Republicans for the crisis, claim that data showed the president’s policies were working, and insist that Biden had been forced to act alone because Republicans “refused to give the funding necessary” to address the immigration system.

The claim that the Biden administration was “stopping the flow at the border” was made as the southern border was experiencing the highest levels of illegal crossings ever recorded in American history.

The Exchange

Doocy set up the question using the administration’s own Democratic ally against it: “Eric Adams, the New York mayor, is saying about these migrants in New York City: ‘Any plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border is a failed plan.’ So why aren’t you guys stopping the flow at the border?”

Jean-Pierre’s answer was delivered with the confidence of someone stating established fact: “We are stopping the flow at the border. If anything, what the president has been able to do on his own without the help of Republicans in Congress, something that he had to do on his own again because Republicans refuse to give the funding necessary to deal with a situation, a broken immigration system that has been broken for decades.”

She continued: “They choose, what they choose to do is play politics, but the president has put a plan that is indeed, the data is showing, is that it is indeed stopping, slowing down the flow of unlawful migration. And that is because of the work that this president continues to do without, without the help of Republicans.”

The answer contained several distinct elements of the Biden White House’s border messaging playbook: the flat denial that a crisis existed, the blame-shifting to Republicans, the vague reference to data without citing specifics, and the framing of the president as a lone actor fighting an uncooperative Congress.

Eric Adams Breaks Ranks

The significance of Doocy’s question lay in its source. Eric Adams was not a Republican critic or a conservative media figure. He was the Democratic mayor of the nation’s largest city, a former police officer who had won office on a platform of public safety and pragmatic governance. When Adams declared that any plan not including stopping the border flow was “a failed plan,” he was breaking from the Biden White House’s messaging in the most public and direct way possible.

By August 2023, New York City was in the grip of a migrant crisis that was straining the city’s shelter system, budget, and social services to their breaking point. Tens of thousands of migrants had arrived in the city, many transported on buses from Texas by Governor Greg Abbott, who was using the transfers to highlight the consequences of the border crisis for the entire country, not just border communities.

Adams had become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the federal government’s response, warning that the city was spending over $12 billion on migrant services and that the influx was “destroying” New York City. His willingness to criticize the Biden administration publicly was a sign of how severe the crisis had become, as Democratic officials who had previously supported or at least tolerated the administration’s immigration approach were forced to confront the real-world consequences in their own communities.

The Data Jean-Pierre Referenced

Jean-Pierre’s claim that data showed the Biden administration was “indeed stopping, slowing down the flow of unlawful migration” referred to a temporary decline in border encounters following the implementation of new asylum processing rules after the end of Title 42 in May 2023. The administration had implemented a rule that limited asylum eligibility for migrants who crossed the border illegally without first seeking protection in a transit country or using a legal pathway.

The decline, which occurred primarily in June and July 2023, was modest and proved to be temporary. By August and September, encounter numbers were climbing again, and they would reach all-time highs by the end of the year. December 2023 saw over 300,000 border encounters in a single month, the highest monthly total ever recorded.

The administration’s strategy of pointing to short-term fluctuations while ignoring the overall trajectory of the crisis was a recurring pattern. A temporary dip of 20 or 30 percent from record highs still left encounter numbers far above any level that had existed before Biden took office. The baseline from which the administration was measuring success was itself a crisis-level number.

The Republican Blame Game

Jean-Pierre’s insistence that Republicans were to blame for the border crisis rested on two arguments: that Republicans had refused to provide funding for immigration enforcement and that they were “playing politics” rather than working on solutions.

Both arguments had significant weaknesses. First, the border crisis began immediately after Biden took office and implemented a series of executive actions that reversed Trump-era enforcement policies. These executive actions did not require congressional approval or funding, and their reversal demonstrated that the executive branch had significant unilateral authority over border enforcement. Biden had used executive power to open the border; the claim that he needed congressional action to secure it was internally contradictory.

Second, the characterization of Republicans as obstructionists ignored the fact that Republicans had been proposing border security legislation for years, consistently calling for completion of the border wall, restoration of the Remain in Mexico policy, and enhanced enforcement resources. The Biden administration had rejected or ignored these proposals while simultaneously blaming Republicans for not working on the issue.

The Crisis in American Cities

The border crisis’s impact on American cities extended far beyond New York. By late summer 2023, multiple major cities were experiencing the downstream effects of the unprecedented flow of migrants across the southern border.

Chicago had converted multiple police stations into temporary migrant shelters and was housing migrants at O’Hare International Airport. Denver was spending millions from its budget on migrant services and had begun busing migrants to other cities. Washington, D.C., was struggling to accommodate arrivals despite having declared a public health emergency over the migrant influx.

The crisis was particularly acute in cities with existing affordable housing shortages and strained social service systems. The arrival of tens of thousands of additional people requiring shelter, food, medical care, and eventually employment put enormous pressure on systems that were already serving at or above capacity.

Additional Context

Jean-Pierre’s claim that Biden was “stopping the flow at the border” would not age well. In the months following this press briefing, border encounters surged to their highest levels ever, reaching a peak that made the August 2023 numbers look modest by comparison. The crisis became the single most damaging issue for Biden’s re-election effort, consistently ranking as the top or second-ranked concern among voters in national polling.

Mayor Adams’s criticism of the Biden administration continued to intensify throughout 2023 and 2024, as did similar complaints from other Democratic mayors and governors. The political damage from the border crisis ultimately contributed to Biden’s decision to take belated executive action on border enforcement in 2024, an implicit acknowledgment that his earlier policies had failed.

Key Takeaways

• Karine Jean-Pierre claimed the Biden administration was “stopping the flow at the border” on August 30, 2023, at a time when the southern border was experiencing record-breaking illegal crossings.
• Peter Doocy used a quote from Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who declared that “any plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border is a failed plan,” turning a Democratic ally’s criticism against the administration.
• Jean-Pierre blamed Republicans for the crisis and cited vague data suggesting a slowdown, referencing a temporary decline that proved short-lived as border encounters surged to all-time highs by year’s end.
• The exchange occurred as multiple American cities, including New York, Chicago, and Denver, were buckling under the weight of the migrant crisis and Democratic mayors were publicly breaking with the Biden administration.
• The administration’s claim of border success was contradicted by the data: border encounters under Biden had increased by over 400 percent compared to the final full fiscal year of the Trump administration.