WASHINGTON – White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed Friday that the government does not require COVID-19 vaccines for people who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, despite new terms from President Biden for to two-thirds of American workers.
“That’s right,” Psaki told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy at his daily news conference.
Psaki responded briefly when Doocy asked, “It’s a requirement for people in a business with more than 100 people. It is not a requirement for migrants on the southern border. Because?”
She did not elaborate.
Biden’s new vaccination obligations affect federal workers and contractors, employees of private companies of 100 or more people, health workers, and some teachers.
Psaki said “some of these requirements are the next lever needed to vaccinate more people.”
In July, more than 212,000 people illegally crossed the southern border, surpassing the more than 180,000 people captured in both May and June. Unaccompanied children and some families are allowed to stay in the U.S., but most single adults are deported under the Trump administration’s COVID-19 policy.
Biden’s vaccine mandates, announced Thursday, apply to about 100 million Americans. Most federal workers and contractors should be vaccinated if they do not meet the requirements for religious or medical exceptions. And a new Labor Department rule will require companies and organizations with 100 or more employees to impose a vaccination warrant or subject staff to weekly testing.
Psaki said companies will incur fines of up to $ 13,600 for infringement and that companies should choose the “more cost-effective” option of requiring workers to be vaccinated, rather than eating up the cost of weekly testing.
He defended a journalist’s question about whether the mandate would worsen the already struggling struggles of many companies to hire low-wage workers. The lack of available workers had been widely attributed to the increase in pandemic federal unemployment benefits that ended this week.
“I understand you may be asking me about smaller companies, but it’s for employees of 100 or more,” Psaki said.
A recent ABC News / Washington Post poll found that among those who rejected vaccines, 42 percent said they would rather leave their job than undergo a shot.
In addition to its strict mandate on federal workers and contractors and the upcoming rule for larger companies, Biden on Thursday ordered vaccinations for about 17 million health center employees and 300,000 teachers from Head Start programs for children. poor.
Biden said earlier Friday that critics of mandates can “have it.” The rules are expected to be challenged in the courts and received a good response from some unions.
Psaki stated that the mandate on companies is on a solid legal basis under the laws granting authority to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“This is a tool, a step that, again, there is legal authority based on a 50-year law,” Psaki said.
But he added that it is not within the government’s power to order all U.S. residents to be vaccinated.
“We don’t have the ability to say to all Americans,‘ You have to get vaccinated, ’” he said.
According to CDC data, 75.3% of American adults have received at least one coronavirus vaccine. But vaccination rates vary by state and the national infection rate is as high as late January, when few Americans were vaccinated.
The Federal Association of Law Enforcement Officers opposed Biden’s mandate on federal workers and the American Federation of Government Employees said:[w]I look forward to negotiating this change before implementation “.
Biden outlined the new mandates after his approval rating was achieved in several recent national surveys, including less support for his pandemic management, as the more contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 drives the increase. of infections.
