White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has spoken out to defend President Joe Biden for reopening a detention center for migrant children on Monday.

CBS News reported on Monday that over 200 migrant teenagers were sent to a reopened facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas. There are already plans in place to expand the number of detained children to 700 in facilities across the country.

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Biden had condemned this type of facility during his presidential campaign last year, accusing former President Donald Trump of putting children and “babies in cages.”

“Under Trump, there have been horrifying scenes at the border of kids being kept in cages, tear-gassing asylum seekers, ripping children from their mothers’ arms,” Biden wrote in an op-ed back in 2019. Not stopping there, he went on to accuse Trump of “actions that subvert American values and erode our ability to lead on the global stage.”

In an attempt to defend Biden’s blatant hypocrisy, Psaki blamed COVID-19 social distancing requirements for the need to expand the facilities for unaccompanied children apprehended at the border.

“It’s a temporary reopening during COVID-19,” she said, referring to Biden reopening the facility. “Our intention is very much to close it.”

Psaki then tried to argue that these facilities were not similar to that of the previous administration.

“This is not kids being kept in cages,” she said. “This is a facility that was opened that is going to follow the same standards as other HHS facilities. That was never our intention of replicating the immigration policies of the past administration.”

An HHS official was quoted on Monday as saying that they were preparing extra capacity in the facilities to handle the surge of children.

“We don’t know how many kids are going to be coming in the upcoming days, or weeks or months, and so we have to make sure that our contingency plans include preparing for even more bed space than we think we might need,” the HHS official said.