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Biden approval numbers tank over border crisis: poll
When it comes to the divisive issue of immigration and border security, President Biden's approval rating is plummeting, a new survey suggests.
Just a third of Americans say they approve of Biden's handling of the issue of immigration, with 53% saying they disapprove of his performance, an NPR/Marist poll said Tuesday.
While two-thirds of Democrats say they approve of how Biden has handled the issue in the first two months of his presidency, his approval rating plunges to 27% support among independents and just 5% among Republicans.
The influx of migrants across the nation's border with Mexico has jumped since Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20. Republicans have repeatedly slammed the president on the issue, blaming him for what they constantly call a "crisis."
This week the Biden administration began asking federal workers to help with "urgent efforts" to care for the surge in unaccompanied migrant children who are arriving at the southern border. Thousands of the children are being temporarily housed in border facilities that were set up for adults.
Biden is also facing incoming fire from the Democratic Party's progressive left, which is increasingly frustrated with the slow progress so far by the president to deliver what he promised on the 2020 campaign trail – a more humane immigration system than the restrictive policies under former President Donald Trump's administration. CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON OUR TOP STORY.
In other developments:
- Migrant caravan of hundreds of Hondurans departs for United States
- Biden's border response blasted as 'half-a--ed gig' by Texas congressman
- Fort Bliss overflow site receiving 500 unaccompanied minors amid border surge
- Immigration officials to remove references to immigrants as 'aliens' in agency’s policy manual
- VP Harris thanks Guatemalan President Giammattei after his crackdown on migrants, doesn't visit border
- Biden WH claims Trump ‘eschewed’ science, amid criticism for health protocols at border
San Diego teachers instruct migrant kids with higher COVID rates than US students stuck learning virtually
EXCLUSIVE: Unaccompanied child migrants housed at the San Diego Convention Center have an alarmingly high COVID-19 infections rate – but local teachers will be providing them in-person instruction before their own students.
Hundreds of migrant girls have been housed at the facility as the Biden administration is trying to figure out how to handle a crisis of unaccompanied children flocking to the southern border.
Of more than 700 unaccompanied girls transferred to the center, at least 82 tested positive for the virus as of Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Fox News on Tuesday evening.
All of the girls had been tested before being transported to the temporary facility Monday, with 59 testing positive for coronavirus. They were being housed separately and anyone injured or ill was being treated on-site by staff from Rady's Children's Hospital, although children with serious illnesses are not taken to the facility to begin with and go right to a hospital.
Another 23 girls tested positive at the facility, and they were moved to a different floor from the negative-testing population. Anyone exposed but who has not tested positive was also quarantined in another area. Children who had not tested positive would continue to be tested every three days, according to HHS. CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
In other developments:
- Psaki grilled on teachers giving in-person instruction to migrant kids before own students
- Republicans furious San Diego teachers instructing migrant kids in-person before Americans
- San Diego public school teachers to give migrant kids in-person instruction before their own students
- San Diego school teachers offered ‘white privilege training' where participants commit to being ‘antiracist’
Blackburn questions ICE, DHS on spending $86.9M on hotels for migrants
EXCLUSIVE: Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn is demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tuesday over $86.9 million the agencies are spending to house more than 1,200 migrant families in hotel rooms.
The Biden administration, earlier this month, authorized ICE to spend $86.9 million through Texas-based nonprofit Endeavors for hotel rooms near the border to provide temporary shelter and processing services for families who have been expelled from the U.S. but have been placed in immigration proceedings for their removal.
But Blackburn, R-Tenn., in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE acting Director Tae Johnson, is questioning the nonprofit's past financial disclosures, and how the funds will be used.
Blackburn said that in 2018, Endeavors brought in "over $38 million in contributions and grants," and noted that "IRS filings show that nearly $22 million or almost half of those contributions went to salaries."
"This raises questions if half of the $86.9 million in ICE contract proceeds will likewise be allocated toward employee and executive compensation instead of migrant services or housing," Blackburn wrote.
"As the current contract stands, the cost to taxpayers for housing 1,200 migrant families for six months is about $71,000 per person," Blackburn wrote. "For a family of four, that amounts to a shocking $284,000 — enough to buy a small house." CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
In other developments:
- Tucker Carlson: Migrant surge will 'change the country forever'
- Biden administration awards ICE $86M contract to secure hotel rooms for illegal families
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TODAY'S MUST-READS:
- GREGG JARRETT: Tears, emotion, and incriminating testimony in Day 2 of Chauvin trial
- G. Gordon Liddy, Watergate mastermind and Nixon operative, dead at 90
- Idaho mass stabbing suspect Timmy Kinner pleads guilty to murder of girl, 3
- Virginia Beach police make 3 more arrests, recover 14 firearms after Oceanfront shootings: report
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- UCLA knocks out Michigan, advances to men's Final Four
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#The Flashback: CLICK HERE to find out what happened on "This Day in History."
SOME PARTING WORDS
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) and its leader Dr. Tedros Adhanom, on Tuesday night’s "Hannity."
Adhanom is a "fawning, obsequious suckup to the Communist Party of China – which supported his election," Kennedy said. "As I’ve said before, if you took President Xi of China, turned him upside down and shook him, Dr. Tedros would fall out.
"Now Dr. Tedros has issued a report on behalf of the UN and in collaboration with China. It closely tracks Chinese propaganda. It all but dismisses the lab-leak hypothesis."
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Fox News First was compiled by Fox News' Jack Durschlag. Thank you for making us your first choice in the morning! We’ll see you in your inbox first thing Thursday.