White House adviser is GRILLED on why Biden hasn't visited the border as Title 42 nears its end

One of President Joe Biden's top White House advisers was pressed on why her boss has yet to visit the southern border as of Sunday, with just days to go until the end of a COVID-19-era expulsion policy is expected to bring a wave of new asylum-seekers.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor who's now head of the White House Office of Public Engagement, said she 'can't speak to why he has or has not gone' but insisted the Biden administration had been 'working for months' to prepare for Title 42 to end.

'Simply because people don't see the president at the border, doesn't mean that he's not working,' Bottoms told CBS News' Face The Nation. She added that a presidential visit is, by its nature, 'disruptive' to the operations around it.

Title 42, the Trump administration-sanctioned measure that allows border agents to turn undocumented migrants away in the name of slowing COVID-19's spread, was ordered by a federal court to end by midnight on December 21. 

Officials are expecting as many as 18,000 people to try to cross the border per day when Title 42 ends, according to ABC News. 

Republican lawmakers and some Democrats have been raising concerns that the Biden administration is not taking the deadline seriously enough, pointing out that the president has not even visited the border while at the White House.

CBS host Margaret Brennan asked Bottoms why Biden did not make the trek during a recent visit to the border state of Arizona.

'When the president travels, it is not like you or I jumping on an airplane and getting off and going to our destination. Everything comes to a halt,' Bottoms argued.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor who's now head of the White House Office of Public Engagement, said she 'can't speak to why [President Biden] has or has not gone' to the border during an interview just days before Title 42 is set to end

'So all of these things are in consideration for the president, is that the best use of resources, all of the resources that will be diverted on the ground when the president makes a visit.'

Brennan pressed again, 'Is that why he didn't go?'

'Well, I can't speak to why he has or has not gone,' Bottoms insisted.

'I'm just speaking to the fact that it's a bit more disruptive for the president of the United States to travel than you or I.'

She added, 'But what the President has done is continue to lean in on this immigration issue. It's something that he ran on, and what we know over the past two years, every single thing that the President has run on, he's put time and resources into addressing that.' 

Ahead of his Arizona trip, Biden was asked by a Fox News reporter why he was not stopping at the border. The president told him 'there are more important things going on.'

Officials are reportedly concerned that the daily number of migrants trying to cross the border could hit 18,000 when Title 42 ends by midnight on December 21 (pictured: Immigrants line up to enter a shelter at the Sacred Heart Church on December 17, 2022 in El Paso, Texas)

Immigrants eat breakfast inside an overnight migrant shelter run by Sacred Heart Church on December 18, 2022 in El Paso, Texas. On Saturday the city of El Paso declared a state of emergency, one week after a surge of asylum seekers began crossing the border, quickly overwhelming federal immigration and city authorities

The White House is asking Congress for more than $3 billion to help the Department of Homeland Security prepare for the end of Title 42 (pictured: Migrants sleeping outside in the cold winter temperatures on December 18)

Bottoms said on Sunday that the migrant crisis 'is a problem that [Biden] did not create.' 

If projections for a post-Title 42 America hold true, it be an exponential surge to the already record-setting number of people who have tried to cross the U.S.-Mexico border so far in Biden's term.

Republicans have used the rise in 'illegal immigrants' as a political cudgel against Biden and the Democrats in power. 

But Bottoms pointed out that people are not breaking the law by requesting asylum in the U.S.

She also called on GOP lawmakers to work with Democrats on bipartisan immigration reform, and to approve a request for more than $3 billion in funding that the Department of Homeland Security made earlier this month to help prepare for the surge of people.

'We need Congress to be a partner in this, and we need Congress to act, because this is a global issue that we are facing. And the White House alone can't do it, we need support from Congress,' Bottoms said.

She would not answer definitively when asked whether Democratic leaders assured the funding will be in place.

'We're gonna keep trying, we're going to keep pushing. So it's our hope, we're working daily around the clock with members of Congress to make sure that funding is in place because those resources are needed,' Bottoms said.

The Biden adviser also pledged that the president is committed to pursuing immigration reform, even if the new Republican majority in next year's House of Representatives makes that an uphill battle. 

'American people have said they want us to work together in a bipartisan manner. We need everyone at the table with ideas. Remember, Republicans will control the House. So the the need for Republicans in Congress to say what they won't do has now been removed,' Bottoms said.

'Now tell us what you will do to work with the president to make sure that we have comprehensive immigration reform.'