White House admits ‘big problem’ at Mexico border as minors arrive in thousands
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said last week that almost 9,500 unaccompanied children arrived last month at the south-western US border with Mexico, the highest since May 2019, representing a 62 per cent increase compared with January*.
Alejandro Mayorkas, US homeland security secretary, said on Tuesday that the US was “on pace to encounter more individuals on the south-west border than we have in the last 20 years”.
He defended the administration’s response, and blamed the Trump administration for leaving behind a “completely dismantled” asylum system....
Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, told the Financial Times that while the number of migrants entering the US was not hitting crisis levels, it was “going in that direction”. “What makes it more challenging is that we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” Cuellar added...
Immigration experts say that in the short term, the Biden administration has little choice but to hold children who cross the border unaccompanied.
“That is still better than summarily returning them to Mexico without processing their claims...