Obama Backs Biden's Domestic Agenda But Dismayed By Haitian Migration Crisis

Former President Barack Obama said he supports President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, even as he expressed dismay over the Haitian migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In an interview with ABC News, Obama expressed confidence that his former vice president is on the right track, and voiced his support for Biden's multi-trillion dollar spending package stuck in Congress. Obama described the two bills as something the U.S. “desperately needs” because of the benefits they can bring to working and middle-class Americans.

“You're talking about us stepping up and spending money on providing childcare tax credits - making those permanent to help families, who for a long time, have needed help,” Obama told "Good Morning America."

“You're looking at making our infrastructure function more efficiently ... you're talking about rebuilding a lot of buildings, roads, bridges, ports so that they are fortified against climate change. And also, that we start investing in the kinds of energy efficiency that's going to be required to battle climate change," he continued.

Congress is aiming to take a vote on the $1.2 trillion physical infrastructure bill this week, but negotiations over the larger $3.5 trillion social spending plan backed by progressives are at loggerheads. House progressives are conditioning their vote on the infrastructure bill with a commitment to vote on their preferred package.

Moderate Democrats in the House and Senate are reluctant to support the social spending plan because of concerns over the costs and how to pay for it. Biden has spent recent days working the phones to encourage individual congressmen and senators to vote for the packages, which are the cornerstone of his Build Back Better agenda.

Obama did not appear to share all of the concerns of the moderate wing of his party, in particular the proposed tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. He supports it and dismissed critics who balk at any tax hike, calling the argument against new taxes on the rich to pay for new investments in the economy “unsustainable.”

The former president was less agreeable with the Biden administration in his thoughts on the migration crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border. Migrants from Haiti have been stuck at crowded detention centers near the border while those who have attempted to cross into the U.S. have been forcefully pushed back.

The debacle has sparked criticism of Biden from members of his own party and within the administration itself. Obama called the situation “heartbreaking”, but laid the blame on the nation’s “dysfunctional” immigration system. He said that Biden was correct to push for reform as “something that is long overdue.”

“Are we gonna get serious about dealing with this problem in a systemic way, as opposed to these one-offs where we're constantly reacting to emergencies? And I think that that's something that every American should wanna put an end to,” said Obama.

During his presidency, Obama pushed for immigration reform but was stymied by a Republican-led House of Representatives that resisted a bipartisan Senate bill to offer a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

As he spoke for the need for wide reforms to the immigration system, Obama maintained that a respect for the U.S. laws on crossing its borders is mandatory. He brushed off the idea of “open borders” as “unsustainable” from a practical standpoint.