Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas announced on Saturday that he had ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support a ‘government-wide effort’ to house child migrants – as the numbers continue to rise.
The agency will support the effort to “receive, shelter and transfer unaccompanied children safely” to try in the United States. It is noted that there was a “record number of individuals, including unaccompanied children, at the southwestern border.”
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“I am grateful for the extraordinary talent and response of the FEMA team,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “I am incredibly proud of the Border Patrol agents, who worked in difficult conditions 24 hours a day to care for children temporarily in our care. Yet, as I have said many times, a Border Patrol facility is no place for a child.”
“We are working in partnership with HHS to address the needs of unaccompanied children, which is only becoming more difficult, given the protocols and restrictions needed to protect public health and the health of the children themselves,” he said. “Our goal is to ensure that unaccompanied children are transferred to HHS as quickly as possible, in accordance with the legal requirements and in the best interests of the children.”
DHS said FEMA “is now integrated and located with HHS to look at every available option to quickly expand the physical capacity for suitable accommodation.”
Rep. John Katko, who classified Republican in the House’s Home Security Committee, said it was a sign that there was a crisis on the border – something the government has so far refused to name.
“In doing so, they acknowledge that there is a crisis, even though they will not say so,” he told Fox Report.
He accused the agency of “peeling away” resources that could be used to combat the coronavirus pandemic, such as the distribution of vaccines, to concentrate on borderline congestion.
“It’s outrageous,” he said.
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This is the latest step by the government to tackle a dramatic increase in migrants – including unaccompanied children – in recent weeks. Although it is noted that many of the migrants can be returned through Title 42 protection for public health, child migrants cannot.
CBP encountered 100,441 individuals in February, an increase of 28 percent over January, the agency said. Of these, 19,246 were individuals in family units; 9,457 were unaccompanied children (UACs) and 71,598 were single adults.
The number of migrant children detained along the border has tripled in the past two weeks to more than 3,250. Meanwhile, it has opened more facilities, including the use of a military base in Virginia and a NASA facility – and the termination of capacity constraints due to COVID-19 to address the increase in child migrants.
Republicans and immigration officials have blamed Biden’s policies for encouraging the boom – especially his return to Trump-era border protection such as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and asylum cooperation agreements with Northern Triangle countries, as well as his call to roads to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.
“The Biden government is not addressing a crisis, it is exacerbating it,” the Federal Immigration Reform (FAIR) director of government relations, RJ Hauman, said in a statement. “This is another message that will be heard loud and clear by human traffickers and everyone in Central America. Keep coming to our southern border, things will go smoothly as soon as you arrive here.”
Mayorkas called on DHS staff to volunteer to help CBP and called the numbers ‘overwhelming’. Meanwhile, acting CBP commissioner Troy Miller said this week that “we are still struggling with the number of individuals in our custody, especially in a pandemic.”
But the administration stubbornly refused to call it a crisis, and Mayorkas called it a ‘challenge’ only a week earlier.
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It maintained this position this week, with multiple officials refusing to say the word ‘crisis’.
“You know, I think the … I’m not trying to be cute here, but I think the fact is: we have to do what we do no matter what anyone calls the situation,” said Roberta Jacobson, coordinator. for the southern border, said in a press release on Wednesday.
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“And the fact is that we are all committed to improving the situation, to switching to a more humane and efficient system. And whatever you mention will not change what we do because we are urgent, of the ‘President, to put our system in order and make sure we can better handle the hopes and dreams of these migrants in their homeland,’ she said.