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Jen Psaki grilled on $86M being spent on hotels to house migrants: 'National guardsmen had to sleep in garages'

'Our National Guard was treated one way and then illegal immigrants are going to be put in hotel rooms,' said a reporter who grilled Psaki about Biden's policies

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, had to face some tough questions from reporters about policies dealing with migrants at the border on Monday, March 22, during her daily briefing. Grilled by journalists about President Biden’s border crisis, she was asked questions like why migrants were provided with hotel rooms using taxpayer's money while National Guard troops had to sleep in parking garages in Washington, DC, earlier this year.

A reporter asked Psaki, “One of the options that’s being reported over the weekend is spending $86 million on hotel rooms for some migrants and feeding them. How did you square that with the National Guard troops who were sleeping in parking garages, and some of them got sick from having contaminated food? That’s a disparity a lot of people are pointing out, that our National Guard was treated one way and then illegal immigrants are going to be put in hotel rooms.”

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She responded, “Well, first, let me say that at the time when we became aware of the conditions National Guard troops were in parking garages, as you noted, the president called the head of the National Guard that day and offered his assistance, offered to play any role that he could play, boosting morale, asking for more aid, making sure they had the right, were treated in the way that they deserved for the incredible role they’ve played. So I know that was some time ago, but that was the reaction he took at the time.”

The Daily Wire reported that Fox News reporter Peter Doocy also asked some difficult questions. Doocy said, “Two years ago, President Biden said, ‘We’re a nation that says you want to flee and you’re fleeing opposition, you should come. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are.’ Now he says, ‘I can say quite clearly, don’t come over.’ So why was his position different campaigning than it is governing?” 

Psaki replied by saying, “Well, I think that sometimes there’s language that is used by some that is not including the full context of his comments. I will say that he still believes that he wants our country to be a place where there is asylum processing at the border, where people are considered and go through a proper process who are fleeing persecution, who should be considered for immigration status."

She added, “That is a process that is broken. It was broken by the last administration and he wants to put in place a process through an immigration bill, through steps taken by our Department of Homeland Security and HHS to improve that process and make it safe, efficient, and effective. We’re going to need some time to do that.”

The clip of the media conference was shared on Twitter by Caleb Hull, which attracted a lot of comments from social media users. One person tweeted, “National Guard troops are trained to sleep anywhere. No one wants them to be in parking garages, but their jobs include having to deal with hardship conditions. Immigrants are not supposed to deal with hardship conditions as a condition of being able to cross the border.”

The second person commented, “The guard could have been home in their own beds if not for the insurrectionists who wanted to kill our democracy, so, there's that.  Perhaps those who planned the insurrection should have thought about that. Being a soldier is a tough job, no matter the circumstances,” said another tweet.

“If I remember correctly the national guard were not housed in parking garages that was their break area. They were housed in hotels. Also Trump was president at the time,” another user added.