WASHINGTON (AP) — A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive, with the head of Homeland Security acknowledging the depth of the problem but insisting it’s under control and saying he won’t revive a Trump-era practice of immediately expelling teens and children.
The number of migrants being stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border has been rising since last April, and the administration is still rapidly expelling most single adults and families under a public health order issued by President Donald Trump at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is allowing teens and children to stay, at least temporarily, and they have been coming in ever larger numbers.
More than 4,000 migrant children were being held by the Border Patrol as of Sunday, including at least 3,000 in custody longer than the 72-hour limit set by a court order, according to a U.S. official. The agency took in an additional 561 on Monday, twice the recent average, according to a second official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss figures not yet publicly released.
It has put President Joe Biden in a difficult spot, blasted by Republicans for what they view as encouragement to illegal border crossers and by some Democrats over the prolonged detention of minors. It’s also a challenge to his effort to overhaul the broader Trump policies that sought to curtail both legal and illegal immigration.
“I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over,” Biden said in an interview with ABC News that aired Wednesday.
The number of migrants attempting to cross the border is at the highest level since March 2019, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warning that it is on pace to hit a 20-year peak.
“The situation at the southwest border is difficult,” Mayorkas conceded Tuesday in his most extensive remarks to date on the subject. “We are working around the clock to manage it and we will continue to do so. That is our job.”
The number of children crossing by themselves, mostly from Central America, appears to be surging in particular in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. The Border Patrol took in 280 there alone on Monday.
The total of 561 unaccompanied minors from Monday offers a snapshot of how quickly conditions have changed along the border. That was up 60% from the daily average in February, one of the officials said. In May 2019, during the last surge, the one-day peak was 370 teens and children.
Children and teens crossing by themselves rose 60% from this January to more than 9,400 in February, according to the most recent statistics released publicly by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Health and Human Services Department plans to open shelter facilities at Moffett Federal Airfield near San Francisco and in Pecos, Texas, to handle the flow. It is also looking to expand a facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, to hold 2,000.
Also, the Dallas Convention Center is scheduled to begin holding children as early as Wednesday with plans to accommodate up to 3,000. Another makeshift holding center in Midland, Texas, that opened last weekend for 700 children had 485 on Monday.
Some of the increase in adults is due to people who are repeatedly caught after being expelled under the public health order issued last year to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Other factors include economic upheaval caused by the pandemic and recent hurricanes that worsened living conditions in Central America. Officials say it’s also likely that smugglers have encouraged people to try to cross under the new administration.
Mayorkas said the a surge in the number of children is a challenge for the Border Patrol and other agencies amid the coronavirus pandemic. But he rejected a Trump-era policy of sending them immediately back to Mexico or other countries.
“They are vulnerable children and we have ended the prior administration’s practice of expelling them,” he said.
