Roberta Jacobson, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who was in charge of migrant policy for Biden, just announced she is leaving at the end of April. The White House was quick to report that she had always expected to leave after Biden’s first 100 days, but it’s hard to believe that the current crisis doesn’t have something to do with the timing of Jacobson’s announcement. Not to mention a reported gaffe on her part where, according to Politico, in early March, “Jacobson appeared at a White House briefing to discourage migrants from traveling to the United States. But she misspoke when speaking Spanish, saying the border was open when she meant to say it was closed.”
March 2021 saw the single largest number of unaccompanied minors cross the U.S.’s southern border: 18,800 which is almost double the number in February. The previous high was over 11,000 children in May 2019. Total migrants picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol in March were about 170,000, a 70% increase from February and the highest monthly total seen since March 2001. And mind you, these numbers reflect only the ones caught.
