The issue of how to handle children, part of a huge wave of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers from Central America, stretches back to the Obama administration, and it is now clear that the change from former President Donald Trump to Biden may have actually temporarily exacerbated the problem in the short term.
How many children are coming across the US-Mexico border each day? On average, over the last 21 days, Customs and Border Protection encountered 435 unaccompanied children daily, up from a previous average of around 340 children.
More than 3,400 unaccompanied migrant children were in Customs and Border Protection custody, according to the data dated Tuesday.
How does this compare to previous surges of unaccompanied minors? To compare, at the peak of the 2019 border crisis — when there were overcrowded facilities and children sleeping on the ground — there were around 2,600 unaccompanied children in Border Patrol custody, a former CBP official told CNN.
Does everyone agree this is a crisis? No, the Biden administration does not. White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to confirm Tuesday’s numbers or characterize this as a “crisis.”
Psaki and Roberta Jacobson, the Biden administration’s coordinator for the southern border, briefed reporters from the White House on Wednesday. They said Biden’s administration would focus on improving situations in Central American countries so that the trip to the US-Mexico border would be unnecessary in the future.
He’s asking Congress for $4 billion to help in that effort, re-starting a program to place unaccompanied minors with relatives legally present in the US, and she noted the Biden administration has already changed policy to let asylum seekers apprehended at the border make their…
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