Biden defends skipping border visit while in Arizona, says there are 'more important things'

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Biden tells Peter Doocy ‘more important things’ than border crisis

President Biden answers questions from the press before departing for Arizona.

President Biden defended his decision to skip visiting the U.S.-Mexico border while in Arizona on Tuesday, saying, "there are more important things."

Biden made the defense while boarding Marine One to depart the White House on Tuesday. Biden has never visited the border throughout his presidency, despite the ongoing crisis with record numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the border each month.

"Why go to a border state and not visit the border?" Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked.

"Because there are more important things going on," Biden responded. "They’re going to invest billions of dollars in a new enterprise."

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President Biden departs from Holy Spirit Catholic Church after attending Mass on St. Johns Island, South Carolina, August 13, 2022. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

Migrants attempting to cross in to the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border Aug. 20, 2022 in San Luis, Arizona.  (Nick Ut/Getty Images)

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed Republican border visits as "political stunts" last month.

The U.S. has seen record levels of illegal immigration throughout the Biden administration. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 230,000 border encounters in October alone, an all-time monthly record that broke the previous record set in September.

September data revealed that fiscal year 2022 ended with 2,378,944​ migrant encounters, the highest ever recorded in a fiscal year. That figure does not include the 599,000 ​known "gotaways" that CBP sources told Fox News evaded capture over the same period.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters to not shout questions during a briefing with White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha during a briefing on COVID-19 at the White House on Nov. 22, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The Biden administration has repeatedly sought to dismiss border surges as a yearly pattern. While the southern border has seen a pattern of increases in migration each spring, the surges in both 2021 and 2022 far outpaced previous years, and that pace only escalated throughout the year.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden tapped to lead the administration's effort to address the border crisis, has argued the border is "closed," telling migrants firmly, "Do not come," last year.

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Nevertheless, many of the migrants Fox News spoke to in November described the border as "abierta," or "open." Some of the migrants also praised Biden personally.