More than 700 children who passed from Mexico to the United States without their parents were in the custody of the Border Patrol as of Sunday, according to an internal document from Customs and Border Protection obtained by Axios.
Why it’s important: The current backup is another sign of a neck crisis for President Biden, and a dilemma that makes these vulnerable children worse. Biden finds it easier to talk about preventing the storage of children on the southern border than about solving the problem.
- To make matters worse, border crossings usually peak in the spring and it’s only February.
Behind the scenes: Of the more than 700 children waiting to be transferred to shelters overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 200 had been detained at these border patrol stations for more than 48 hours.
- Nine had been detained for longer than the agreed 72-hour limit, according to the internal document, which marks the current date at 8:15 a.m. on Feb. 21.
During the White House briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged that some children had been detained for four or five days (or more).
- He blamed some of the delays on the bad weather that closed Texas last week, saying some long-term shelters “had no electricity and were not in a place where they had the capacity to take these children in and do security “.
- It also pushed back sharply on the equivalence between the handling of minors in current and previous administrations, which generally come from Central American countries, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
- While president, Donald Trump was criticized for separating children from their parents. This policy is no longer in force, although the growing number of children arriving now are unaccompanied, meaning they are detained alone anyway.
What they say: “We have a couple of options: we can take them home … We can quickly transfer them from CPB to these HHS-managed facilities. … We can put them with families and sponsors without any kind of verification,” he said. dir Psaki. . “We have chosen the average option”.
During the 2019 rise, government watchdogs found a heavy crowd on sanitation, health and safety issues at U.S. customs and border patrol facilities, which are special concerns for children.
- CBP only intends to have short-term custody of migrants before adults and families are transferred to the U.S. immigration and customs agency and unaccompanied children are transferred to HHS.
- However, in January, at least 179 migrant children spent more than three days in CBP custody, as well as at least 48 children in December, CBS News’s Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported this week.
What to see: Coronavirus protocols have also significantly reduced the number of children who can be housed in HHS shelters in the longer term.
- The Biden administration has already been forced to open a temporary influx shelter in Texas for migrant children, which also has the ability to add similar structures to tents.
More than 400 migrant children were referred to HHS shelters just Tuesday, according to an administration official.
- This is a striking number, especially compared to the 30-day reference average at the peak of the 2019 crisis, which was 294.
Bottom line: The Biden administration stopped the use of an emergency health order that had allowed the Trump administration to quickly expel migrant children who crossed the border.
- Some experts now claim that the reversal of Biden’s policy is part of the reason for the recent increase in unaccompanied children arriving at the border.