DHS chief says the border is closed, will not provide a timeline for facilities that can handle the recovery of unaccompanied children

DHS chief says the border is closed, will not provide a timeline for facilities that can handle the recovery of unaccompanied children

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“We established three new facilities last week. … We work on the system from start to finish. We work 24 hours a day, 24/7,” Mayorkas told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” said when he was on the administration’s timeline to have new processing facilities underway. “We have dealt with congestion in the past and the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security will succeed.”

The remarks of Mayorkas, who insisted that the southern border is currently closed to migrants, although the government makes an exception for minor minors, come as the situation there worsens amid a boom in unsupervised children in the US conservation. The Biden government has resisted calling the situation a crisis, although Democratic and Republican lawmakers are doing so while pressuring officials to rectify the growing problem.

Bash pressed Mayorkas to give a timeline and asked, “Can you be more specific?” and “Can you give me an appointment you hope to have so that these children have better facilities?”

The secretary wanted to give a date again and told Bash ‘as soon as possible’ and said the coronavirus pandemic had partially hampered their efforts.

Mayorkas defends the government’s work on the southern border and places the blame on the Trump administration for dismantling the immigration system, saying its department must now rebuild it from scratch.

According to documents obtained by CNN, as of Saturday, there were more than 5,000 unaccompanied children in CBP, compared to 4,500 children days before. Mayorkas told Bash on Sunday that the government was expelling families and single adults, but that they were “focused on … the needs of the children.”

‘I have repeatedly said from the outset that a border patrol station is no place for a child, and therefore we work 24 hours to move the children out of the border patrol facilities, under the care and supervision of the department of “Health and human services that they hide,” he said.

More than 5,000 unaccompanied children are in CBP custody, documents show

As of Saturday, there were more than 600 children who had been in custody for more than ten days, the documents show. Under federal law, unaccompanied children must be transferred to HHS without supervision within 72 hours, which oversees a shelter network designed to house minors, but amid pandemic-related restrictions, children stay longer than the limit of 72 hours in custody.

Children spend, on average, longer than five days in border guards in prison-like facilities.

CNN reported earlier that children alternate schedules to make room for each other in confined facilities, some children have not seen sunlight for days and others take turns taking turns, and it often goes days without one, according to the case managers, lawyers and border patrol agents. . Bunk beds were brought to one of the processing facilities to satisfy the influx of children. One agent says children also sleep on plastic beds and carpets on the floor and benches.

The administration did not predict the balloon experience, officials told CNN, saying they expect the number of migrants arriving at the U.S. border to swell as soon as they take office – given their drastically different approach to immigration compared to the former President Donald Trump – but that they did not expect it to be that big.

Mayorkas has warned that the boom is likely to peak in two decades.

This story was updated on Sunday with additional details.

Priscilla Alvarez, Jason Hoffman and Nikki Carvajal of CNN contributed to this report.

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