McConnell: 'Completely unacceptable' for Biden to extend pandemic emergency but lift bar on asylum seekers at borders

McConnell and Biden in January 2017

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that President Biden was being inconsistent and political by extending the pandemic public-health emergency for another 90 days, and the travel mask mandate for at least 15 days, while announcing that he will lift the pandemic restriction that allows the U.S. to turn away seekers of asylum at national borders.

“Democrats are ending the Covid emergency for illegal immigrants but extending it for American citizens," McConnell said in a press release. “Democrats are not basing their decisions on any smart strategy, coherent plan, or objective science. They pretend the pandemic justifies an endless freeze on student-loan payments despite the tightest job market in modern history, but not controlling who crosses our borders. They pretend that unelected public-health bureaucrats get to dictate economic policy and immigration policy, but they overruled the experts on the actually medical subject of booster-shot policies, causing multiple FDA scientists to resign in protest. When President Biden’s political advisers want to dictate policy, they do so freely, but when they want to duck accountability, they pretend they are powerless.

“This White House is using the pandemic as a pretext to shamelessly pick and choose liberal policies to advance. The effects will be functionally open borders while a state of emergency continues for Americans. Completely unacceptable.”