A House Democrat who represents a congressional district on the Texas-Mexico border called on the Biden administration to stop taking unaccompanied teenagers into custody and instead follow the Trump administration’s policy.
“There is no perfect fix here. The administration is doing the right thing because the law requires that we process unaccompanied minors,” Rep. Filemon Vela said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. “However, we are in the middle of a pandemic and our systems are being overwhelmed. At some point, it is important to take a practical approach.”
“Thirteen percent of the [unaccompanied children] are under the age of 12,” said Vela, whose district is in the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest spot for illegal crossings on the entire border. “One logical approach to this situation would be to return the older teenagers to their home country and provide funding for an effort supervised by the United Nations to properly care for those teenagers upon their return. Then, once the pandemic is under control, you could phase the program back in so that there would be some semblance of control over the process. I think that this would help relieve the current burden.”
Last March, at the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Border Patrol began immediately returning all adults and children to their home countries in an effort to avoid filling detention centers with people amid the coronavirus pandemic. In January, President Biden stopped sending single minors under the age of 18 back to their home countries. Since then, the number of children coming over the southern border has exploded and is expected to surpass levels seen during the 2014 and 2019 surges, with federal agencies opening a handful of influx detention facilities.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION HAS 14,000 MIGRANT CHILDREN WITHOUT PARENTS IN ITS CUSTODY
Border officials expect 117,000 children will arrive without parents or guardians in 2021. The number is higher than the 68,000 taken into custody during the 2014 surge of unaccompanied children and the 80,000 who arrived during the humanitarian crisis at the border in 2019. As of last Thursday, HHS had 9,562 children in its care and another 4,500 in U.S. Border Patrol custody waiting to be transferred to HHS.
When children cross the border between land ports of entry intended for use by vehicles and pedestrians, they are taken by Border Patrol agents to regional stations for processing. The stations were built to hold adults for no more than three days before they are transferred to other agencies or returned south of the border. Children are to be quickly turned over to HHS, which oversees shelters where children will be held an average of one month while the government looks for adults based in the United States who can claim custody of the children.
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HHS and the Border Patrol have opened several influx facilities in Texas, in the form of buildings and tents, to accommodate the thousands being taken into custody each week. All children will go through immigration proceedings in court, but the process can take years due to a significant backlog.
