The Biden administration on Saturday instructed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help cope with the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children entering U.S. border detention amid reports of overcrowding in shelter facilities.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that he has mandated FEMA to assist U.S. immigration officials in receiving and sheltering underage migrants crossing the southern border without parents or legal guardians for the next 90 days.
The deployment of FEMA officials illustrates the formidable logistical and humanitarian test facing the Biden administration at the US-Mexico border as a result of a surge in the number of migrant children detained in recent weeks.
Nearly 9,500 unaccompanied minors, most of them from Central America, arrived in U.S. border detention in February – a high in 21 months. More than 7,000 of them were transferred to the American refugee agency, which is struggling to find enough sleeping space in its network of shelters. The shelters previously operated at reduced capacity due to social distance measures taken as a result of the corona pandemic
The dwindling bed space in US refugee agency shelters has created a huge backlog of minors in Border Patrol shelters, most of which are built to briefly hold adult migrants, not children. The number of children held in Border Patrol custody this week averages over 3,000.
On Friday, CBS News reported that children held at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shelter in South Texas told lawyers they were being held in overcrowded conditions. The children also reported sleeping on the floor, unable to call family members, having limited access to showers, and seeing no sunlight for nearly a week.
In his announcement of the FEMA contract, Mayorkas acknowledged that his department’s border security facilities are not suitable for housing minors.
“I am incredibly proud of the Border Patrol agents, who have worked around the clock in difficult circumstances to care for children who were temporarily under our care,” said Mayorkas. “But, as I’ve often said, a border security facility is no place for a child.”
CBS News has requested access to the migrant reception facility in Donna, Texas.
A FEMA spokesperson told CBS News that the agency is working with the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the refugee agency, to “rapidly expand the capacity for safe and appropriate shelter and to provide food, water and basic medical care. offer.”
Mayorkas said US border officials are working to get unaccompanied minors to the refugee office “as soon as possible”, but noted the pandemic complicates the task.
In addition to the FEMA commitment, Mayorkas said officials from other Department of Homeland Security agencies, including the Federal Protective Service and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), also provided assistance with shelter operations and security.
In 2014, the Obama administration enlisted FEMA to monitor the administration’s response to the then-record number of Central American children crossing the U.S. southern border without parents.
While the Biden administration has so far continued to rely on a public health authority enlisted by the Trump administration to quickly deport most migrant adults and some families without a court hearing, it has allowed unaccompanied children to pursue their proceedings. continue in the US as described by US law.
Republicans have said that the increasing number of children crossing the border stems only from the Biden administration’s policy changes and its commitments to undo Trump-era asylum restrictions.
On Saturday, however, DHS said the marked rise in border crossings can be attributed to poverty, violence and food insecurity in Central America, which is also recovering from two devastating consecutive hurricanes that made landfall last fall.
Nicole Sganga contributed to the reporting.