Thousands of migrant children are detained
Resumption of Trump-era policies sparks complaints
Thousands of unaccompanied migrant children have been making their way to the southwestern border in recent weeks, presenting a new challenge for the Biden administration as it strives to create a humanitarian approach to unauthorized immigration.
Most of the children, who are arriving from Central America by the hundreds each day, are being placed under COVID-19 quarantine for 10 days and then shuttled to shelters around the country — prompting complaints that President Joe Biden is returning to one of the most controversial practices of the Trump administration, the extended detention of migrant children.
In the past week, the Border Patrol intercepted more than 2,000 young migrants traveling without adults, most of them in their teens but some as young as 6. There is widespread concern that their numbers in coming months could break the record set in May 2019, when 11,000 underage migrants were encountered by the Border Patrol.
“We are seeing minors up and down the line. In South Texas, we are being hammered,” said one Homeland Security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to talk publicly about the situation.
The arrival of unaccompanied children in large numbers compounds a difficult situation already in the making, with migrant families and single adults arriving at the border in ever larger numbers in recent months.
Many migrants — not all — are being turned back by U.S. authorities under an emergency public health law invoked by former President Donald Trump at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But the Biden administration has decided not to refuse entry to minors. Human rights groups have criticized the decision to hold children in detention during the weeks or months it takes to place them with relatives, a policy they say harks back to the Trump administration’s construction of tent camps along the border to hold an overflow of migrant children.
Last week, the Biden administration reopened a temporary shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, to house up to 700 migrant teenagers. The shelter, which faced a barrage of criticism, was closed in July 2019 after the number of children arriving at the border sharply declined.
“It seems this administration can’t think their way through to a new way to handle the situation,” said Joshua Rubin, an activist with Witness at the Border, which was preparing to stage protests outside a soon-to-reopen migrant children’s center in Florida. “Spending time in these large, impersonal places traumatizes them.”
Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, D-N.Y., a longtime critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, said on Twitter that “this is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay no matter the administration or party.”