Addressing what could be becoming his young administration’s biggest headache and potential liability thus far, President Biden used a national TV appearance to tell potential immigrants to the United States, “Don’t come.”

Biden, from Day One of his presidency, has promised a more humane and open immigration system along the nation’s southern border than that allowed under former president Donald Trump.

That promise has spurred a new wave of hopeful immigration across the US southern frontier: More than 13,000 unaccompanied minors are in U.S. custody and the Biden administration is searching for places to house them amid new reports of dire conditions.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Biden about the immigration challenge specifically, during an interview with the president.

Biden promised that a better system was coming, but that it was not yet in place — and that the US government just is not yet ready.

“But here’s the deal. We’re sending back people. First of all, the idea that Joe Biden said, ‘Come.’ Because I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy and I won’t do what Trump did,” Biden said.

“They’re saying this?” Stephanopoulos confirmed.

“Yeah. Well, here’s the deal. They’re not,” Biden explained.

“Do you have to say quite clearly, ‘Don’t come’?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“Yes. I can say quite clearly, ‘Don’t come,'” Biden replied. “We’re in a process of getting set up. Don’t leave your town or city or community.”

Biden’s views were echoed by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a separate interview with Stephanopoulos.

 “And we are building the capacity to address the needs of those children when they arrive, but we are also and critically sending an important message that now is not the time to come to the border. And it’s an important message. Let me share with you a real-life example why,” Mayorkas said. “We encountered at the border three young children under the age of 10 without a parent or a legal guardian. We did not expel them as the Trump administration did. We took in those children and placed them in the care and custody of Health and Human Services until we can put them in the custody of a parent or legal guardian or close relative here in the United States.

“But their mother didn’t make it along the dangerous journey and that is why we are saying, ‘Do not take the dangerous journey now, give us time to build an orderly, safe way to arrive in the United States and make the claims that the law permits you to make,'” the secretary added.

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