24 March 2021
A number of senior Biden administration officials and members of Congress are taking a trip on Wednesday to a refugee resettlement facility along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The high-level trip comes as pressure mounts on President Biden to visit himself amid a surge of unaccompanied children and migrant families crossing into the United States.
- It was not made immediately clear which officials would be on the trip to the Refugee Resettlement Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas.
- The White House agreed to allow a press camera for the first time. While the public has been given a glimpse of the conditions at some border facilities, they have come from pictures shared by members of Congress or through official administration channels.
- Media outlets have not been able to visit the sites and gather footage independently.
The visit is the latest in a series of trips taken by government officials ranging from members of Congress to the president's top border officials.
- They come as Republicans try to blame the administration for the problem and the White House seeks to defuse the issue.
- The GOP says the new president is to blame for refusing to reinstate a Trump-era policy to expel unaccompanied minors, as well as more accommodating language the Biden team concedes is connected to its humanitarian values.
Flashback: The president himself told reporters last week he intends to take a trip to the border "soon."
- Asked whether he is interested in seeing the conditions in which children are living, he said, “I know what’s going on in those facilities."
Go deeper: Exclusive photos shared recently with Axios revealed the crowded conditions inside one U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas.
- Axios previously reported the president has been involved in conversations about border facilities, highlighting the importance of the impending crisis.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.