WASHINGTON – The number of unaccompanied immigrant children arrested for illegally crossing the southern border of the United States increases at a rate of 50% in February compared to the previous month, according to people familiar with the matter, which increase the outlook of a humanitarian crisis there.
About 2,200 children have crossed the border illegally weekly in February, and the pace is rising as the month progresses, according to some people. The government projects about 9,000 children to be arrested by the end of February.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 5,707 unaccompanied children in jail in January, 18 percent more than the previous month. The growing number of detained children is beginning to stress the government’s ability to house and care for them properly.
The White House did not respond to any requests for comment. CBP said it would not share the specific number of unaccompanied children detained out of monthly totals, and said the figure was a sensitive law enforcement issue and added that the processing of children continued to be prioritized over ‘other migrants.
The Biden administration has tried to prevent a recurrence of border humanitarian crises in 2014 and 2019, when waves of unaccompanied migrant children and families flooded federal facilities.
Until February, the pace of children arriving at the border unaccompanied remained lower than in any of these previous waves. The government’s task of caring for children had already been complicated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The space of the government’s child welfare shelter network, managed by the Refugee Resettlement Office of the Department of Health and Human Services, has been reduced by 40% to allow for social distancing.
This has meant that the government has reached its capacity much more quickly than before the pandemic. The government opened an emergency shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, this week to house more children.
When children cannot be sent quickly to shelters, they remain in the custody of the Border Patrol. The cells of the border patrol facilities are not designed to house children and their agents are not trained to care for children.
As of Friday, more than 900 children were waiting at border patrol stations to be taken to a shelter, according to a person familiar with the number, and 100 of them were waiting for more than the 72-hour limit allowed by law.
President Biden has proposed a comprehensive immigration reform plan. But, as Gerald F. Seib of the WSJ explains, it faces an upward rise that could be even harder than previous administrations faced. Photographic illustration: Laura Kammermann
Illegal border crossings by unaccompanied children, families and single adults have increased since the summer due to a mix of factors. The pandemic has worsened the economic situation in Mexico and Central America, where most migrants come from.
The Biden administration has been seeking a balance in its policy on the southern border, and has indicated to immigration advocates that it is working to reverse former President Donald Trump’s policies that restrict access to the asylum system. , while sending a message to potential migrants — in English and Spanish: now is not the time to make the journey north.
White House officials have been working with Latin American governments to spread their message and, in some cases, hire foreign agents to return migrants to the southern borders of the United States.
The Biden administration has put in place a public health emergency order issued by former President Trump during the pandemic that allows border agents to quickly turn back most migrants they encounter, bypassing the formal arrest process . In these cases, migrants have not been allowed to seek asylum, a legal protection that anyone can seek if they flee political, religious or other persecution in their countries of origin.
Although crossing the border without permission is illegal, U.S. law allows foreigners to apply for asylum regardless of how they enter the country. According to Department of Justice data, most people seeking asylum in the U.S. lose cases.
In November, a court ordered the Trump administration to stop implementing the public health emergency policy on children. An appeals court overturned the decision after President Biden took office, but his administration chose not to resume sending children to their home countries.
“Our best option, in our view, is to get these children to be processed through HHS facilities where there are Covid protocols, where they are safe, where they can have access to educational and medical care,” Jen Psaki said. , White House press secretary. Thursday.
Republicans and former Trump administration officials have criticized the Biden administration for this decision, saying it has contributed to the recent increase.
“This is a self-inflicted crisis,” Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s top adviser and architect of his immigration policy, said in an interview.
Write to Michelle Hackman to [email protected]
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