Officials said there are more than 9,500 children under the supervision of the Department of Health and Human Services and about 4,500 under U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This is an increase from earlier this week. An official added that the average length of stay for a child in HHS supervision is 34 days.
But as the number of children under federal supervision increases, the White House is under pressure to come up with a response that both alleviates the problem, while maintaining the more humane approach Biden strives for.
According to reporters on Thursday, senior administration officials maintained that it was former President Donald Trump’s policy that left them in the current predicament.
“Children posing at the border are not a national crisis,” one official said on condition of anonymity.
“January 20 was not suddenly the moment that the border looked different. The numbers are increasing and decreasing,” the official said. “Adults are being turned back. Most families are being turned back. We can process and protect children who come to our borders as the law requires and our government does.”
Despite the government’s efforts to reduce the current increase in migrants, CBP is on track to encounter more individuals at the border than in the past 20 years, Interior Minister Alejandro Mayorkas said on Tuesday. He said the agency runs into children as young as six and seven years old.
Mayorkas’ television appearances this week, along with briefings by officials, are designed to show that the administration is at the forefront. Biden has blamed the Republicans, but also some Democrats, harshly for dealing with it.
Administration officials said Thursday that most adult migrants and migrant families are being evicted. But they acknowledged that there were restrictions on Mexico’s ability to take in migrants, especially those with young children. And they reiterated that the government of Biden would not expel minors without guidance.
“We are dealing with the hand we received. The president inherited a mess,” an official said. “We have a whole government approach to cleaning up the mess.”
The administration is now focusing on expanding the capacity at its facilities and speeding up the processing of unaccompanied children that will enable them to move faster out of government care, officials said Thursday.
This includes amending Covid-19 protocols in ways that increase the number of people allowed into each facility, open new facilities and pay for child flights or transportation to reunite with family members or guardians.
Officials also stressed that they are working through diplomatic channels to address the causes of migration from Central America, which includes violence, poverty and – this year – two devastating hurricanes.
But these efforts are in the long run. For now, the government has said it is trying to quickly sharpen the capacity at new CBP facilities in Texas and Arizona to accommodate the incoming migrants, while also providing a basic level of convenience.
An official said the temporary processing facility operated by CBP in Donna, Texas – which houses the most unaccompanied children arriving at the border – ‘is designed to provide the best care possible under the circumstances. ‘
The official said it included three meals a day, access to regular snacks, freedom of movement, phone calls, showers and occasional outdoor leisure time.
“There’s what I would say people do best to provide care in a facility that really cannot accommodate such large children,” an official said.
Media requests to visit the Donna facility have been repeatedly denied because DHS mentions Covid restrictions. And although the White House said on Wednesday that it would discuss the release of photos taken by a delegation from the Donna facility earlier this month, it sounds unlikely a day later.
“There was a private briefing, an internal briefing a few weeks ago. We do not usually provide the material publicly, but we want you to be able, or a pool of media, to have your own footage. and your own footage of these facilities, ‘said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary.