The statement: “Twice as many children are under Biden under border patrol below Trump’s peak in 2019.” – Government Greg Abbott.
Abbott, a Republican, made the claim in a March 30 tweet.
Fact rating: true. Numbers of U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirm this claim. In June 2019, the Trump administration admitted 2,600 minors to border patrols, the highest amount during Trump’s term.
On March 29, 5,160 minors were detained by the border patrol and were waiting to be transferred to the Refugee Relocation Office.
Discussion
Unaccompanied minors have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers since the presidency of President Joe Biden, and Republican leaders in border states have been quick to highlight the challenges facing the federal government.
Abbott hammered out Biden’s administration throughout March. First, he accuses the administration of ‘reckless border policy’ that released migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 in the US. The governor recently focused on increasing the number of minor minors arriving at the border.
PolitiFact is a fact checking project to help you track facts in politics. Truth O-meter ratings are determined by a panel of three editors. The burden of proof is on the speaker and PolitiFact judges the statements based on the information known at the time the statement was made.
‘The Biden admin. are unprepared for the crises they have caused, ”Abbott continued in the tweet, adding that the state police and the national army had been sent to help the situation.
2019 was the last year that the border authorities recorded an increase in migration and family crossings. And the authorities believe that the number of encounters this year will exceed the levels seen at the time.
Abbott’s claim cites an article published Tuesday by the Washington Examiner, a conservative newspaper in Washington, DC. Referring to ‘federal data obtained exclusively Monday night’, the website reported the same claim. Customs and border protection confirmed the numbers.
In 2020, the Trump administration stopped arresting minors after it instituted a policy that immediately expelled all people crossing the border, including children, with reference to COVID-19 precautions.
The Biden government suspended the policy for children in January and allowed young people who cross the border alone to stay in the US while awaiting immigration court proceedings.
Migrant children can be detained in the border patrol facilities for a maximum of 72 hours, a rule set out in the Victims’ Trade Retention Act of 2008. From there, children are referred to the Refugee Relocation Office. , within the U.S. health and human services. The department has the task of caring for minors and connecting them with suitable sponsors.
But the stress placed on the system by the large number of migrant children has led to many minors being detained outside the 72-hour border at the Border Patrol facility. (The Trump administration also struggled to meet the limit.) On March 30, for example, more than 2,000 children were detained in Donna in a border patrol facility, according to Pro Publica.
“We need to work better to ensure that HHS and ORR have greater capacity, and we need to speed up the transfer of these children from our supervision to their supervision,” a senior Customs and Border Protection official told reporters during ‘ a March 26 briefing.
The Biden administration has rushed to establish greater capacity in the refugee relocation office to alleviate the bottleneck in the border patrol facilities. The agency has activated or opened what it calls in-stream care facilities, which are unlicensed care facilities that provide surplus shelter and can be erected within a few weeks, and emergency inpatient facilities, which are new facilities that serve as unaccompanied road stations according to the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants , moving children from border patrol to the refugee relocation office.
Many of these new or temporary shelters are being built across Texas – including two in San Antonio and one in Houston.
It is difficult to determine the exact factors that lead to today’s numbers of unaccompanied children doubling the peak of 2019, experts say.
Immigration experts often divide migration managers into two categories: pressure factors, or the conditions in countries of origin that cause people to leave home; and migration factors, or the conditions of a destination country that make it a more attractive place to live.
U.S. immigration policy is often cited as a major pull factor, and Biden relaxes policy after Trump’s immigration savings are often cited as an important one.
But many experts believe that it is the pressure factors in migrants’ home countries that are the drivers of migration to the US
In 2019, Honduras struggled with civil unrest and an increase in gang violence, while Guatemala struggled with environmental issues affecting the food security of the population.
Last year, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua suffered two Category 4 hurricanes that hit the region within two weeks. As millions needed help, the hurricanes exacerbated poverty and increased access to clean water, giving extra attention to people considering northern migration.
“The hurricanes made a big difference,” said Yael Schacher, senior U.S. attorney at Refugees International. “People were in a situation where they were just recovering, and the hurricane wiped them out.”