The Biden administration is facing an early challenge about how to deal with migrant youths at the U.S.-Mexico border, putting it on the defensive over the very issue Democrats long used to excoriate the Trump administration for a “kids in cages” approach.
The flow of unaccompanied migrant children taken into custody by federal authorities has risen dramatically of late. More than 1,500 children were apprehended last week, with an additional 300 detained on Sunday, according to government data viewed by CBS News.
“There are dramatic increases of numbers of children arriving,” said Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy for Kids in Need of Defense.
The Department of Health and Human Services reported this week that its facilities for children were near capacity. Health protocols imposed by the pandemic have created new constraints, leading the the department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement to open an emergency facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas. Seven hundred children are still being held at a Border Patrol tent facility several hours away.
In a sign of growing frustration, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the administration on Tuesday, writing on Twitter that detaining kids will “never will be okay – no matter the administration.”
That made for an uncomfortable comparison by AOC, one of the most influential voices on the Left, between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. During the Trump administration, Democrats routinely decried the keeping of “kids in cages,” part of a broader family separation policy that was presented to the public as a “zero tolerance” approach intended to deter illegal immigration.
And while immigration activists aren’t exactly crying hypocrisy, they’re increasingly concerned about similarities between approaches by the two administrations.
That is, the Biden administration is housing migrant teenagers in some of the very same facilities Democrats decried.
“The only real choice the government has is to use influx facilities,” said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, who worked on the issue at the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2009-2017.
Out of more than 13,000 beds, thousands are not operational because of social distancing requirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Greenberg, who was a member of the Biden-Harris Agency Review team for HHS, said if the numbers were to return to the levels seen in 2019, when there was a large influx, the country would face an urgent situation because of COVID-19.
“It’s been known for some time that if the Biden administration ceased the Trump administration practices of preventing children and other populations from entering the country, that it was going to mean that more would enter,” he said.
HHS said Monday that some children had already arrived at the Carrizo Springs facility, a former camp for oilfield workers, which had been closed since July 2019. The site is expected to hold 700 children between the ages of 13 and 17.
Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, urged the Biden administration to shutter the site “as soon as public health permits.”
“It is critical that it not repeat the mistakes of the Trump administration,” Shah said.
The Carrizo Springs facility was sharply criticized by Democrats during the Trump administration when it was open for one month in the summer of 2019.
A facility in Homestead, Florida, is also slated to reopen, drawing further criticism. ACLU representatives visited the Homestead Detention Center in 2019 and called for its closure.
“I’m very disappointed,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cavana told reporters Wednesday, noting that she had worked to close the site and calling for a response from the White House on its plans for the facility. “I urge them to explore other options for housing unaccompanied minors.”
Families Belong Together, a project of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, an advocacy organization, said the decision by the White House was the latest evidence of broken promises “piling up.”
“President Biden just announced his plans to reopen Homestead — a jail for migrant children with a notorious history of abuse,” the group tweeted. “The broken promises of the Biden administration are piling up.”
Trump is expected to hammer Biden’s policy on immigration in a keynote address at CPAC on Sunday, in remarks that will attempt to chart a path for the Republican Party.
The Homestead Detention Center came to national attention during the Democratic presidential primary, when several candidates, including now-Vice President Kamala Harris, visited the site while in Miami for the debates. Standing outside the facility, Harris said she would close private detention centers if elected.
Biden blasted the Trump administration’s programs earlier this month, issuing orders to reverse a so-called “zero tolerance” border policy.
In a Twitter thread on Tuesday, AOC called for a “bold reimagination” of the country’s immigration system that would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“DHS shouldn’t exist, agencies should be reorganized, ICE gotta go, ban for-profit detention, create climate refugee status & more,” AOC wrote.
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The White House has defended the process.
On Wednesday, press secretary Jen Psaki said the reopening of the Carrizo Springs site was the White House choosing a “middle option.”
