Border securitySurge in Migrants at U.S.-Mexico Border Reignites Washington Debate
Thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the Mexican border into the United States have quickly reignited the contentious immigration debate in Washington, with Republicans and Democrats at odds over who is to blame. The Biden administration has stopped short of calling the influx of migrants, including nearly 30,000 unaccompanied children that arrived from Central America between October and the end of February, a crisis, preferring to call it a challenge.
Thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the Mexican border into the United States have quickly reignited the contentious immigration debate in Washington, with Republicans and Democrats at odds over who is to blame.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led a group of Republican lawmakers to the border Monday to condemn policies of Democratic President Joe Biden that McCarthy said have opened the border to unfettered illegal migration.
“The security of our nation and our border is first and foremost the responsibility of our president,” McCarthy told reporters in El Paso, Texas, at the border. “It didn’t have to happen. This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration. There’s no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis.”
Upon taking office in January, Biden stopped construction of the border wall championed by former President Donald Trump and has advanced what he says are more humanitarian immigration policies.
But Biden has kept in place some of Trump’s policies, including the ability to expel adult immigrants and families, citing public health pandemic rules.
The Biden administration has stopped short of calling the influx of migrants, including nearly 30,000 unaccompanied children that arrived from Central America between October and the end of February, a crisis, preferring to call it a challenge.
But Biden and his aides have been hard-pressed to keep thousands of impoverished Guatemalan, Honduran and Salvadoran migrants from making the dangerous trek through Mexico to what they believe will be a safer, more prosperous life in the United States.
FEMA to Help
Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that for the next 90 days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would help process the large number of unaccompanied migrant children.
“Our goal is to ensure that unaccompanied children are transferred to Health and Human Services (HHS) as quickly as possible, consistent with legal requirements and in the best interest of the children,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
The children are being kept in makeshift facilities at the border — already at 94% capacity — before they can be sent to relatives living in the U.S. or to vetted families willing to take care of or adopt them.
