Migrant surge has officials on heels
Biden administration scrambles to address some 14K in custody
WASHINGTON — Within weeks of Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, the Biden administration had reversed many of the most maligned Trumpera immigration policies, including deporting children seeking asylum who arrived alone at the U.S.-Mexico border and forcing migrants to wait in Mexico as they made their case to stay in the United States.
While the administration was working on immigration legislation to address longterm problems, it didn’t have an on-the-ground plan to manage a surge of migrants.
Now officials are scrambling to build up capacity to care for some 14,000 migrants now in federal custody — and more likely on the way — and the administration finds itself on its heels in the face of criticism that it should have been better prepared to deal with a predictable predicament.
“They should have forecasted for space (for young migrants) more quickly,” said Ronald Vitiello, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and chief of Border Patrol who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations. “And I think in hindsight, maybe they should have waited until they had additional shelter space before they changed the policies.”
Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials. There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February — an increase of 168% and 63%, respectively, from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center. That creates an enormous logistical challenge because children need higher standards of care and coordination across agencies.
Still, the encounters of unaccompanied minors and families are lower than at various points during the Trump administration. In May 2019, authorities encountered over 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors, and about 84,500 migrants in family units.
Biden administration officials have repeatedly laid blame for the current situation on the previous administration, arguing that Biden inherited a mess resulting from President Donald Trump’s undermining and weakening of the immigration system. The White House also points to Biden’s decision to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known for helping communities in the aftermath of a natural disaster, to support efforts to process the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border. HHS announced Saturday that it was opening an additional facility in West Texas to help with the influx of unaccompanied minors. The facility will initially accommodate about 500 children but can be expanded to house 2,000.
Biden and others have pushed back on the notion that what’s happening now is a “crisis.”
“We will have, I believe, by next month enough of those beds to take care of these children who have no place to go,” Biden said in a recent ABC News interview, when asked whether his administration should have anticipated the surge in young unaccompanied migrants as well as families and adults. He added, “Let’s get something straight though. The vast majority of people crossing the border are being sent back ... immediately sent back.”
Adam Isacson, an analyst at the human rights advocacy group Washington Office on Latin America, said Republicans’ insistence that there is a “crisis” at the border is overwrought, but that the surge in migrants was predictable.
He called it a perfect storm of factors: hurricanes that hit Central America last fall; the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic; typical seasonal migration patterns; the thousands of Central American migrants already stuck at the border for months; and the persistent scourge of gang violence afflicting Northern Triangle countries — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
The situation hasn’t stopped Republicans, including Trump, from pillorying Biden.
“It’s more than a crisis. This is a human heartbreak,” said House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California , who recently led a delegation to El Paso, Texas.
Biden is also facing criticism from Republicans that his administration has sent mixed messages.
Critics have focused on public comments from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who this month said the administration’s message to migrants was “don’t come now” and a slip by Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s lead adviser on the border, who said in Spanish during a recent briefing the “border is not closed,” before correcting herself.
The president and other officials in recent days have stepped up efforts to urge migrants not to come. Embassies in Northern Triangle countries are airing public service announcements underscoring the dangers of making the trek north.
Eric Hershberg, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, said Biden’s team faces a powerful counternarrative as it attempts to persuade desperate Central Americans to stay put: chatter on social media from migrants who successfully made it across the border and smugglers who insist that now is the ideal time.