More than 2,000 adults who attempted to illegally enter the U.S. from Mexico between ports of entry have been referred by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the Justice Department for prosecution, forcing about the same number of children to be taken into federal custody, a Homeland Security Department official told reporters Tuesday.
Exactly 4,548 individuals came to the border as part of 2,235 family units and were apprehended between May 5 and June 9. The number of adults referred for prosecution was 2,206, resulting in 2,342 children being turned over to the Health and Human Services Department within 72 hours.
DHS reported last Friday that it had taken 1,995 minors from April 19 through May 31, making it impossible to compare the new figure, which only dates back to May, to the one released last week in order to gauge how fast that number may be growing since the zero tolerance policy drew widespread media coverage this month.
[Also read: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
The Justice Department began prosecuting all illegal entrants, including first-time offenders, earlier this spring. Because children cannot remain with parent during the proceedings, HHS takes custody of the minors and will look for another family member or family friend in the U.S. to send the child to live with while his or her parent is in federal custody.
“We are under a legal obligation to try and place them expeditiously with sponsors. Our order of preference would be parents, close family members, friends of the family,” Steve Wagner, the acting assistant secretary at HHS’s Administration for Children and Families, told reporters during a call.
Wagner added HHS is not time-limited in terms of how long it can house children.
“We actually don’t have a time limit in terms of days. when kids leave our care, they have received a notice to appear from the immigration court and the parents or sponsors to whom we release them are obligated to ensure the kids appear at their court date,” he said.
Family units can only be kept together up to 20 days while in DHS custody due to the Flores Settlement Agreement, which mandated unaccompanied minors be treated the same way as family unit children.
HHS told the Washington Examiner last Thursday it had selected a U.S. Customs and Border Protection port of entry near El Paso, Texas, as the first back-up site to temporarily house unaccompanied alien children apprehended by law enforcement after illegally crossing the Southwest border with or without adults.
The Trump administration is also moving forward on a plan to tentatively house unaccompanied minors in tent cities located on three Texas military bases due to increasing border apprehensions and a shortage of beds for the underage immigrants.
“[Health and Human Services] is running out of space because of the implications of the zero tolerance policy, but also because we continue to see this uptick in numbers,” an official confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
HHS officials are looking at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, and Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, the official said.
