From News Nation:
“DHS chief
defends US handling of ‘difficult’ border situation”
Faced with a
rising number of migrants at the southwest border and criticism from all sides,
the Biden administration’s head of Homeland Security insisted Tuesday that the
situation is under control as he defended a policy of allowing children
crossing by themselves to remain in the country. Homeland Security Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas conceded that a surge in the number of children, mostly from
Central America, is a challenge for the Border Patrol and other agencies amid
the coronavirus pandemic. But he rejected a policy under former President
Donald Trump, which sent them immediately back to Mexico or other countries. “They
are vulnerable children and we have ended the prior administration’s practice
of expelling them,” Mayorkas said in his most detailed statement yet on a
situation at the border that he characterized as “difficult” but not the crisis
that critics have portrayed.
The increasing
number of migrants attempting to cross the border, which is at the highest
level since spring 2019 but is on pace to rise to hit a 20-year peak, has
become an early test for President Joe Biden as he seeks to break from his
immediate predecessor, who waged a broad effort to significantly curtail both
legal and illegal immigration. Republicans in Congress on Monday stepped up
attacks on Biden over a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, but were
criticized in turn by Democrats for their own immigration record, as well as
Trump’s policies. U.S. authorities saw a 60% increase in children crossing the
southwest border alone between January and February to more than 9,400. The
overall increase is blamed on a number of factors, including the economic
upheaval caused by the pandemic in Central America and two recent hurricanes in
the region. “Two damaging hurricanes that hit Honduras and swept through the
region made living conditions there even worse, causing more children and
families to flee,” Mayorkas said. U.S. officials have also conceded that
smugglers have likely encouraged people to try to cross under the new
administration. Some progressive Democrats and others, meanwhile, have assailed
the Biden administration for holding migrant children in U.S. Customs and
Border Protection detention facilities longer than the allowed 72 hours as it
struggles to find space in shelters run by the Department of Health and Human
Services. On Monday, the Border Patrol encountered about 4,700 people crossing
the border illegally from Mexico, including 1,575 in the Rio Grande Valley, the
busiest corridor for illegal crossings, the official said. That’s up from a
daily average of nearly 3,500 across the border in February and higher than
about 4,300 during the peak of the Trump surge in 2019.
The overall
increase is blamed on a number of factors, including the economic upheaval
caused by the pandemic in Central America and two hurricanes in the region.
U.S. officials have also conceded that smugglers have likely encouraged people
to try to cross under the new administration. House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy led a delegation of a dozen Republican lawmakers on Monday to the
border in Texas and blamed the Biden administration for driving an increase in
migrants by actions that include supporting legislation in Congress that would
provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented people now in the
country and halting border wall construction. “The sad part about all of this
is it didn’t have to happen. This crisis was created by the presidential
policies of this new administration,” McCarthy said.
Trump
confronted a similar surge in 2019 even as he rushed to expand the border wall
system along the border and forced people seeking asylum to do so in Central
America or remain in Mexico. A year earlier he forcibly separated migrant
children from their families as part of a zero-tolerance campaign that became
one of the most significant political challenges of his administration. After
dropping during the start of the pandemic, the number of migrants caught while
crossing the border began to rise in April. Some of the increase is due to
people who are repeatedly caught after being expelled under the public health
order. The total number of people encountered by CBP rose about 28% from
January to February to just over 100,000, most of whom were single adults. The
last time the number was that high was in June 2019. Mayorkas acknowledged that
Border Patrol facilities are crowded and that the 72-hour time frame for their
transfer to HHS is not always met. Migrants who are under 18 years old are
being allowed to remain in the country while the government decides whether
they have a legal claim to residency, either under asylum law or for some other
reason.
The U.S. is
continuing to expel most single adults and families either to Mexico or to
their countries of origin. Mayorkas said exceptions are being made for adults
with “certain acute vulnerabilities” that he did not specify or for families
when Mexican authorities don’t have capacity in shelters to accept them. Mayorkas
noted that 80% of the children, most of whom are from the three Northern
Triangle countries of Central America, have a relative in the U.S. and 40% have
a parent. “These are children being reunited with their families who will care
for them,” Mayorkas said. The Biden administration last week ended a Trump
administration policy that made relatives reluctant to contact HHS to retrieve
children for fear of being deported themselves. It has enlisted the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to set up new temporary facilities to house migrant
children in Texas and Arizona, working with HHS to expand shelter capacity and
backing aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to try to stem the flow of
migrants at the source. Mayorkas also criticized the previous administration
for dismantling an asylum system that would have enabled a more “orderly”
immigration system, cutting aid to Central America and failing to vaccinate
Border Patrol agents. “We have to rebuild the entire system, including the
policies and procedures required to administer the asylum laws that Congress
passed long ago,” Mayorkas said. He promised that the U.S. has made progress in
addressing the border situation. “We have no illusions about how hard it is,
and we know it will take time,” Mayorkas said. “We will get it done.”
^ President
Biden and his DHS Chief are failing to keep American borders safe (especially during
the Pandemic.) While I do not like Trump or many of things he did I do think he
took securing our borders seriously. The Democrats went after him for stopping
the hundreds of thousands of people who tried to illegally enter the US through
Mexico. Now the Democrats are in power and Biden and DHS has all but openly
invited the illegals to come to the US causing the current emergency along the
US-Mexico Border. Biden and DHS need to get their act together and start refusing
entry to everyone who enters the US illegally – including children. These
children are being used as pawns by their Parents with the belief that once
their children are inside the US they will be allowed to come here and be with
them. If Biden and DHS do not do something major now the situation will become
even more dire for everyone involved – especially the Americans living along
the border. ^
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