On Sunday, Jill Biden visited a border camp in Matamoros, Mexico, where she handed out food and Christmas presents to asylum seekers.
The move by Joe Biden’s wife, however, was not perceived well by many.
Instead, it was blasted as nothing but a PR stunt for her husband’s campaign and criticized as putting Mexico first over the hungry right here in the United States.
The Hill has a video of Jill’s visit to the border camp:
Trump War Room responded with this flashback to Biden's 2014 immigration policy:
Others also shot away at the stunt by Jill Biden.
Many on Twitter questioned why she wasn't helping Americans in need:
Some pointed out how the whole thing looks inauthentic and staged (better be careful, Joe...remember what happened to Kamala!)
One Angel Mom on Twitter countered Jill's claim that visiting the camp was "heartbreaking" by telling her to "meet me at the cemetery":
Border Report has more to say about Jill Biden's visit to the Mexican camp:
rekking through thick mud and puddles left after recent rains, Jill Biden, wife of former vice president Joe Biden, joined a group of religious and local leaders on Sunday to pass out tamales and Christmas gifts to children as she toured a refugee camp across the border from Brownsville, Texas, where thousands of asylum-seekers live.
Wearing thick black boots, Biden spent almost two hours in the camp, led by Brownsville Catholic Bishop Daniel Flores, U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Texas, and well-known local Catholic nun Sister Norma Pimentel, who oversees volunteer efforts here for several nonprofit groups that help the migrants each day.
At noon the bishop led a prayer for the families who lined up for a Christmas meal plate of tamales, rice and beans. Flores asked God “to watch over these families during these difficult times.”
Over 2,000 migrants live in the camp — most of which are called MPPs, because they are forced to remain in Mexico as part of the Trump Administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols program — as they await their U.S. immigration hearings. This past year over 60,000 MPPs from California to Texas have been sent to wait in Mexico, Trump administration officials said recently.
Some of the families have been living in tents in this filthy and smelly encampment — at the base of the Gateway International Bridge — since mid-July when MPP was first implemented in South Texas.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s really heartbreaking,” Biden said as she stood on the banks of the Rio Grande where clothes hung from trees, children played in mud pits and migrants peeked out of their tents to get a glimpse of her. “Across the river is the flag of the United States. The flag of the United States offers people hope. They’re bringing their families and their loved ones here for hope of a better future and a better life for themselves.”
“We are all immigrants and our nation was built on immigration and immigrants and we are welcoming nation, but that’s not the message we are sending here at the border. We’re saying ‘Stop, don’t come in!’ And that’s not who we are,” said Biden, whose husband is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Valley Morning Staralso stated:
Hundreds of migrants from the largest refugee camp on the United States-Mexico border lined up for food with mud caked on their feet following a rainy weekend in the Rio Grande Valley that left their squalid camp a muddy mess.
Food is often brought by American volunteers who cross Brownsville’s Gateway International Bridge, but Sunday was different.
Tamales, beans and rice from Taco Palenque were on the menu and Dr. Jill Biden — the former Second Lady of the United States and a campaign surrogate for her husband Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic nomination in 2020 — was about to arrive with her host, U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela. An early Christmas meal is the least they could do, Vela said.
“Buen provecho,” Biden said to a young boy as she handed him a plate.
It was Biden’s first time at the camp, which she repeatedly called “heartbreaking.” She was also in town for two fundraisers, as her husband and former Vice President Joe Biden seeks to win the Democratic nomination for president. Immigration could be a key issue in the election, yet the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which has left thousands of migrants stranded in Mexican cities, has not been a focus for many of the campaigns.
Perhaps Sunday’s visit could change that. The group handed out 1,500 plates, which represents about half the population of the refugee camp that is full of mostly Central American migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. But border officials in the U.S. have sent the migrants to Mexican border cities to wait for their asylum claims to be adjudicated starting in early 2019.
Vela and Biden walked with Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and Mike Benavides of the volunteer group Team Brownsville, into the heart of the camp.
“Can you imagine living in these camps for months?” Pimentel asked Biden, as they walked between tents with homemade stoves on top of old washing machines and clothes hanging on trees like Christmas ornaments.
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