- The Biden government is struggling to address the influx of migrants to the southern border.
- The administration is now spending $ 86 million on hotel rooms to house migrants near the border.
- Biden has publicly urged migrants not to travel to the US, but the boom is expected to grow.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
President Joe Biden’s administration has secured a $ 86 million contract for hotels to house migrants, Axios reported on Saturday. The contract comes as the president struggles to address the growing number of families and children who want to enter the United States.
The contract is with hotels near the border in Arizona and Texas to hold about 1,200 migrants, and will last six months. It was created by Endeavors, a non-profit housing and disaster relief program.
Hotels have been used by immigration officials in the past, including last year, when hundreds of migrants, including children, were detained in large hotel chains before being deported under President Donald Trump’s pandemic border ban.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The latest decision to secure hotel rooms comes as the U.S. sees the largest surge of migrants at the border in decades, and this year toward a potential 2 million migrants at the border between America and Mexico, reports The Washington Post. The boom puts a lot of pressure on government resources and border towns.
Upon his appointment, Biden wanted to portray his immigration policy as more humane and empathetic, and immediately recalled several Trump-era immigration policies. Biden also offered a plan to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.
Republicans blamed Biden’s actions and rhetoric for the uprising, which Kevin McCarthy, leader of the House of Minorities, calls a ‘Biden border crisis’. Meanwhile, Biden has publicly tried to encourage Central American people not to travel to the US and stay where they are.
As of Saturday, there were 5,000 unaccompanied children detained by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in prison-like facilities, CNN reported. More than 600 children are being held for more than ten days, in violation of the law.
It is assumed that unaccompanied children are transferred from CBP supervision within 72 hours and transferred to shelters managed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Post reports that thousands of children are detained by CBP for an average of 107 hours before being transferred.
According to the Associated Press, the number of encounters with families and children at the border is currently lower than at various times during the last government, including the spring of 2019. But experts have warned that the current boom is still increasing and is likely to peak. in May, based on previous training patterns, CNN reported.
In addition to trying to manage the border congestion, the Biden administration is also working on comprehensive immigration legislation that will address ongoing issues.