The Federal Emergency Management Agency will help shelter and transfer a record number of child migrants who appear on the U.S.-Mexico border, Homeland Security said Saturday.
While President Joe Biden’s government has avoided calling the situation a national emergency as former President Donald Trump declared in 2019, it has acknowledged an increasing number of “meetings” at the border since April.
Homeland Security Minister Alejandro N. Mayorkas said FEMA will help children found at the border prevent them from being treated as detainees by Customs and Border Protection and speed up the care of the Department of Health and Human Services. Services will move.
From there, he said, the children could be placed with a family member or sponsor until their immigration cases were processed.
“I have said many times that a border patrol is no place for a child,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
FEMA will find and expand suitable facilities for the children, the Department of Homeland Security said, and adults and escorted children will continue to be returned to Mexico.
Homeland Security officials said volunteers would also be part of the effort to find shelter for the migrating children.
In the late winter, so many unaccompanied minors arrived at the border unaccompanied that some observers believe a new humanitarian crisis could arise.
NBC News reported on Monday that more than 3,200 unaccompanied migrant children are being housed in the customs and border protection facilities. More than half were detained in so-called “refrigerators” that are not intended for children, because prisoners can only be detained in the cells for three days.
Geoff Bennett contributed.