Biden's narrative has as many holes as his immigration policy.

If it wasn't clear before, the Biden Administration's border story came into focus during yesterday's press conference. The story goes like this:

• There is nothing out of the ordinary happening at the border.
• You (the media) can see the detention facilities for yourselves, just not yet.
• Most family units are being sent back.
• If there is anything to worry about, it's Trump's fault; and
• We'll fix it by making Central America a place people will no longer want to leave.

MSNBC published an administration-friendly analysis as the event was unfolding, but the handful of reporters who were in attendance were not as accommodating.

What do you say to the migrants who say they are coming because of you?

Did you act too quickly to reverse your predecessor's policies?

How will you manage the border while you undertake the long-term project of building up Central America?

It wasn't exactly a grilling, but the Beltway press corps pushed Biden enough to expose some holes in the narrative.

Stef Kight of Axios was among the first to offer a "reality check."

CNN's Daniel Dale flagged Biden's claim that the majority of family units were being turned back. "That was not true in February," he said.

NBC News corrected the president's claim about unaccompanied minors and family members being returned, and added that "While Trump did announce $700 million in aid cuts to Central American countries in 2019, the State Department later restored the majority of that funding."

The New York Times said Biden "exaggerated" when he claimed Trump shut down bed capacity for minors, and noted that for most of Trump's term, there was greater bed capacity than there was during the Obama-Biden border surge.

The Associated Press said Biden "misstated the reality," and "while he tried to play down his inauguration as a reason many children and teenagers have decided to migrate to the U.S., migrants interviewed by The Associated Press have expressed hope that the country would be more permissive to migrants under Biden than under Trump."

Rich Lowry and the editors at National Review were less diplomatic:

"In evading this reality throughout the press conference, Biden resorted to a haze of misrepresentations, and inadvertently exposed the senselessness of his own policy....

"...he said that the nine-year-old boy should be returned to his mother in Honduras. But that was precisely the Trump policy that Biden overturned and now falsely portrays as inhumane. Under Biden's policy, that nine-year-old is likely in an HHS detention facility and will not be returned home, instead placed with the nearest relative that can be found in the United States."

Media critics, including yours truly, will note the significant differences between the coverage of this border surge vs. the one that took place under President Trump in 2019. Compared to the 24/7 outrage over child and family detentions during the Trump administration, the press has demonstrated the patience of Job this time around, despite increased crowding and decreased transparency under the direction of the Biden team.

But it would be unfair and inaccurate to say that the media has let the new administration off the hook completely.

The Washington Post, for instance, detailed how the Biden administration took steps that led directly to the surge:

"He issued five immigration executive orders on Inauguration Day alone and promised an immigration policy far more humane and welcoming than that of his predecessor. His administration also began allowing unaccompanied minors into the country, a marked departure from the Trump administration's approach...

"....The administration also took several steps - including saying it would allow unaccompanied minors into the country - that increased the flow of migrants and encouraged more to try their luck. There are now more than 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, and 5,000 more in the care of Customs and Border Protection, nearly twice the previous record..."

Reuters spoke with a dozen Central American smugglers who openly admitted that they are tailoring their operations to comport with Biden's new policies.

"It's good to take advantage of the moment," said one human smuggler, "because children are able to pass quickly."