The number of unaccompanied migrant children in Customs and Border Protection’s custody has nearly tripled in the last two weeks.
“CBS News has learned that the number of unaccompanied migrant children in @CBP custody has nearly tripled in the last 2 weeks,” journalist Norah O’Donnell tweeted Monday.
“The current number of children in CBP custody is the highest in the agency’s history, a former DHS official tells CBS.”
BREAKING: CBS News has learned that the number of unaccompanied migrant children in @CBP custody has nearly tripled in the last 2 weeks.
The current number of children in CBP custody is the highest in the agency’s history, a former DHS official tells CBS.@cbsmireya reports pic.twitter.com/TDoVR5wCj9
— Norah O’Donnell ?? (@NorahODonnell) March 8, 2021
There are more than 3,200 unaccompanied minors in CBP’s care, with 1,400 who have remained in custody past the 72-hour limit.
“DHS has continued our close coordination with HHS as it increases its capacity to care for unaccompanied minors and place them with sponsors,” a CBP spokesperson told the Washington Examiner in an email. “Our goal is to ensure that CBP has the continued capability to quickly and efficiently transfer unaccompanied minors after they are apprehended to HHS custody, as is required by U.S. law, and as is clearly in the best interest of the children.”
The news comes as law enforcement officials and political leaders in states along the southern border have repeatedly warned that immigration has turned into a crisis situation.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also announced deploying National Guard troops to combat the “smuggling of people and drugs into Texas.”
“The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration,” said Abbott. “Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.”
The Biden administration last week denied a crisis is occurring on the border, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas instead describing the situation as a “challenge.”
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“The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security are working around the clock, seven days a week, to ensure that we do not have a crisis at the border — that we manage the challenge, as acute as the challenge is,” Mayorkas said.
President Biden asked senior officials last week to travel to the border in order to brief him on the matter.
