The Biden administration has tasked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with the housing and transfer of migrant children detained at the nation’s southern border.
What We Know:
- FEMA is working on transferring the growing number of migrant children at the border from the custody of Border Security into the care of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Children will be placed with a family member or sponsor until their immigration status can be determined. The order was given as the Biden administration grapples with an increasingly tense immigration situation.
- Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement the move would avoid children being held as detainees of U.S. Customs. “A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” he said.
“We are working in partnership with HHS to address the needs of unaccompanied children. . . Our goal is to ensure [they] are transferred to HHS as quickly as possible, consistent with legal requirements and in the best interest of the children,” he continued.
- In addition, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the migrant children crisis “a humanitarian challenge to all of us.” Many Democrats have blamed Trump’s policies for the mishandling of the border situation, and Biden has made it his priority to reverse them. “What the administration has inherited is a broken system at the border, and they are working to correct that in the children’s interest,” Pelosi added.
- According to Homeland Security, the mass influx of unaccompanied children arriving at the border has only been increasing; the number of children and teens being held in border facilities is over 3,400. They’re kept in cramped, crude facilities receiving little food and sleeping on the floor in cells that are so cold they’re nicknamed “freezers.” Many have been held for longer than the 72-hour legal limit.
Border crossings spiked last month, with 9,457 unaccompanied children taken in by U.S. Customs agents in February. Immigration remains a tightly contested issue in Washington, as Biden’s administration continues to battle against Republicans on reform.
