President Biden
Joe BidenBiden signs executive order to increase access to votes Myanmar military carries out violent night raids Confidence in coronavirus vaccines has grown and majority now say they want it MORE faces a growing dilemma on the southern border that shows little sign of declining: the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the United States has been steadily increasing in recent weeks.
Thousands of migrants have crossed the border in the first six weeks of Biden, many of them unaccompanied minors. The influx has put the government’s resources and ability to quickly implement its own strategy to the test, while Republicans are raising the alarm about what they see as a Biden crisis.
Biden’s administration is rapidly adapting its approach to meet the need for space and staff, taking into account the seriousness of the situation.
“President Biden has asked senior members of his team to travel to the border region to provide him with a full briefing on the government’s response to the influx of unaccompanied minors and an assessment of additional actions that could be taken to the safety and care of these children, ”said White House spokesman Vedant Patel in a statement.
Officials are reportedly in the process of involving the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and The Washington Post reported that the government is looking for family detention centers in processing facilities to speed up screening of migrant children and their parents.
Those steps come a few weeks after the government reopened a facility for migrant children in Texas, despite Biden’s fierce criticism of the use of similar facilities during the Trump administration.
Experts said the influx of migrants in Biden’s first weeks in office is not significantly higher compared to previous peaks, but cautioned that the Trump administration’s efforts to make it more difficult to enter the country will increase efforts to meet the challenge. can complicate.
“There have been many instances where there were more people, but the previous administration did its best to dismantle the institutions that ensure a functioning immigration system,” said Eric Hershberg, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. at American University.
So what this government needs to do is quickly increase the capacity to process the people arriving at the border, figure out how to accommodate them while their requests for immigration assistance are handled … and figure out how to get them, once they are released epidemiologically, for family members who can take care of them while they work through the immigration system, ”he added.
Biden government officials have discouraged migrants from the Northern Triangle region of Central America from making the trek to the U.S. border, warning that the journey is dangerous, the United States does not have the capacity to handle large numbers of people, and that the majority of migrants are turned away at the border.
Still, border agents arrest thousands of migrants a day, and even some Democrats have warned that the situation could turn into a full-blown crisis in the coming weeks.
Texas State Senator Juan ‘Chuy’ Hinojosa, a Democrat living in the border town of McAllen, told The Hill that the influx of migrants is rapidly turning into a crisis and officials there do not have the resources they need to manage the migrants or to test them all for COVID-19.
He said the Biden administration’s move to allow people to stay in the country while they await their immigration proceedings – a so-called “catch and release” practice banned under Trump – is encouraging migrants to make the dangerous journey, despite requests from the White House that people stay at home.
“It’s gotten worse,” said Hinojosa. “I honestly don’t think the Biden administration was aware of what’s going on here on the ground, which you can understand because they just come in and try to get people to know what’s going on, but I don’t know I don’t think they knew there were so many people encountered. The border patrol is overwhelmed, they throw their hands in the air because they don’t know what to do. “
The Border Patrol reported an average of 3,000 arrests a day in January. Officials did not disclose the total number of arrests in recent weeks, but Reuters reported that border police officers arrested about 4,500 migrants on Wednesday alone, a number rivaled by the peak numbers in 2019 when the former President Trump
Donald Trump Biden Signs Executive Order To Increase Voting Rights Albany Times Union Editorial Calls For Cuomo Attorneys To Resign Warn Restrictive Voting Bills Could End Georgia’s Record Turnout MORE threatened to close the border.
Biden made unraveling Trump’s immigration policy a priority when he took office. The new government halted construction of the border wall and halted migrant protection protocols requiring migrants to remain in Mexico pending processing, while pledging to reunite families who had been separated for the past four years.
“We certainly have a different approach,” the White House press secretary Jen Psaki
Jen Psaki Cruz clings to Biden’s CIA-nominated US refugee agency sees record numbers of migrants in February Democrats prepare for PR battle for COVID-19 aid MORE said Friday when asked if Biden’s approach encouraged migrants to move to the US border. “We understand the outcome and its impact, but we will use every tool we have at our disposal, and we will use every officer we can to communicate clearly that this is not the time to come.”
Republicans are trying to increase pressure on Biden to act authoritatively to address the problem.
Home GOP leader Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy McCarthy reads for ‘Green Eggs and Ham’: I ‘Still Like It’ Dr. Seuss Chamber of Commerce clarifies position on lawmakers who voted against election certification Watch Live: McCarthy Holds Press Brief MORE (California) on Friday requested a meeting with Biden, saying he “feels compelled to express deep concern about the way your administration is approaching this crisis.”
House Republicans have asked the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat to hold a hearing on the border crossing.
In a statement released Friday, Trump dissolved Biden, accusing him of causing the crisis.
“Our boundary is now completely out of control thanks to Joe Biden’s disastrous leadership. Our major Border Patrol and ICE agents have been disrespected, humiliated and mocked by the Biden administration. A massive raid on the country by people who shouldn’t be here is happening every hour and getting worse by the minute, ”Trump said.
At the same time, liberals have expressed anger at the reopening of housing facilities for unaccompanied minors used under Trump.
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that the Biden administration may use a military base in Virginia to house unaccompanied minors as facilities along the border are reaching their maximum capacity.
John Amaya, the former Deputy Chief of Staff for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under former President Obama, told The Hill that Biden has done an admirable job thus far settling Trump’s policies.
But before a comprehensive immigration bill is passed, he said, Biden must have convinced lawmakers and the public that the border is secure, that immigrants are vetted, and that both Americans and migrants consider the entry process fair.
He said this would require Senate-confirmed heads of agencies and ground-level leaders that Biden’s White House has been slow to set up at ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Health and Human Services.
“They are doing a great job of reviewing everything that has been done by the last team and trying to get rid of the Frankenstein monster that Trump created and try to establish a fair and just system that complies with international laws and our own. – that’s a huge and wonderful step, ”said Amaya.
“Where they need a little more help, and it’s an internal decision, they should appoint Senate-confirmed heads of agencies,” he said. “The staff, the officers, the agents, they need the confirmed leadership of the Senate and it is sorely lacking. It makes a big difference when you have those leaders. “