Sir, I just got back last night from a reporting trip to the border where I met

9-year-old Jose, who walked here from Honduras by himself along with another little boy.

He had that phone number on him and we were able to call his family.

His mother says that she sent her son to this country because she believes that you are

not deporting unaccompanied minors like her son.

That's why she sent him alone from Honduras.

So sir, you blamed the last administration but is your messaging and saying that these

children are and will be allowed to stay in this country and work their way through this

process encouraging families like Jose's to come?

Well look, the idea that I'm going to say, which I would never do, that an unaccompanied

child ends up at the border.

We're just going to let him starve to death and stay on the other side.

No previous administration's dead either except Trump.

I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to do it.

That was ABC's Cecilia Vega posing one of the more pointed questions to President Biden

at his first press conference Thursday.

Did his more lenient policies encourage a rash of unaccompanied minors to show up at

the border, overwhelming US officials and resulting in thousands of children being crammed

into detention centers and facilities sleeping on floors with nowhere to go.

It's an excruciating dilemma and all but White House spin doctors, a legitimate humanitarian

crisis.

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