Newsman: President Joe Biden told reporters outside the White House later Sunday he would visit the border “at some point” and maintained, “I know what’s going on in those facilities” when asked if he wanted to see the situation first hand. His administration was working to reestablish a program that allowed refugees to apply for asylum from their home country, Biden added. But the Biden administration currently is “expelling families and single adults, but that they are “focused on … the needs of the children” according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Secretary Mayorkas told CNN on Sunday that they are working around the clock to move those children out of the Border Patrol facilities, into the care and custody of the Department of Health and Human Services that shelters them,” However, As of Saturday, there were more than 5,000 unaccompanied children in CBP custody, according to documents obtained by CNN, up from 4,500 children days earlier. The number of unaccompanied migrant minors under the care of U.S. Health and Human Services has increased to about 10,500, according an HHS which is different than the number of unaccompanied minors in Border Patrol custody. An internal document also shows that, on average, HHS is taking in far more migrant children than it can match with sponsors and family members according to media reports.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also stated “I have said repeatedly from the very outset that a Border Patrol station is no place for a child and that is why we But he declined Sunday to provide a timeline for when the Biden administration will open new facilities capable of handling the surge of unaccompanied children at the southern border.
The HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement will open a new influx shelter in Pecos, Texas, which will operate similarly to the facility at Carrizo Springs. Unlike the Midland, Texas, site or the Dallas convention center, this new facility announced by the Office of Refugee Resettlement on Saturday will offer long-term care for migrant children before they are matched with sponsors.
The Biden administration has resisted calling the situation a crisis, even as Democratic and Republican lawmakers do so as they pressure officials to rectify the growing issue. Mayorkas, who insisted the southern border is currently closed to migrants even though the administration is making an exception for unaccompanied minors, come as the situation there worsens amid a surge in unaccompanied children in US custody. Homeland Security Secretary added that the media will be allowed to the facilities once it is safe due amid pandemic.
“We established three new facilities last week. … We are working on the system from beginning to end. We are working around the clock 24/7,” Mayorkas told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” when pressed on the administration’s timeline for having new processing facilities up and running. “We have dealt with surges in the past and the men and women of Department of Homeland Security will succeed.”The secretary, declining again to provide a date and told “as soon as possible,” adding that the coronavirus pandemic has partly complicated their efforts.
Mayorkas blamed on the Trump administration for dismantling the immigration system, saying his department now has to rebuild it “from scratch.”
Responding to a question about a tweet from Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who said he was holding back tears after seeing a terrified 13-year-old girl sobbing uncontrollably to a translator while he visited the border this week with Mayorkas, the secretary said: “We all know what happened to that 13-year-old girl in the prior administration, she was turned away and turned into the desert of Mexico, or sent back to the very country for which she fled by reason of fear of persecution, we are addressing the needs of that child,” he explained. “Now, when I say it takes time, I mean it, because we’re dealing with a dismantled system.”
“We have a plan and we’re executing. We will succeed. It takes time,” he said.
