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The Biden administration has turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance in handling and caring for the record number of unaccompanied immigrant children who are streaming into the United States by crossing the border illegally with Mexico.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Saturday that FEMA will endorse a government-wide initiative over the next three months to safely accept, shelter, and relocate minor children who arrive at the US southwest border without a parent or other adult.
Hundreds of children illegally reach the United States from Mexico every day, according to government estimates, causing an increasing crisis at the border.
Unaccompanied minor children are expected to be processed and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services within three days so that they can be placed with a relative who already lives in the United States, or another appropriate sponsor, before their immigration cases are resolved.
However, since long-term shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services have almost no ability to hold them, more children are being kept longer at Border Patrol facilities that weren’t built with their treatment in mind. Every day, many more children are apprehended than the HHS will release to their parents or sponsors.
FEMA is partnering with the Department of Health and Human Services to “explore every possible opportunity to rapidly increase physical capacity for adequate lodging,” according to Mayorkas.
Mayorkas said, “Our mission is to ensure that unaccompanied children are moved to HHS as quickly as possible, in accordance with legal requirements and in the best interests of the children.”
During a record influx of unaccompanied minors in 2014, the Obama administration enlisted FEMA’s assistance in organizing the government’s response. At that time, FEMA assisted military bases in establishing temporary shelters and processing stations.
President Joe Biden has reversed Trump’s policy of deporting immigrant children who cross the border alone, but he has kept deportations of immigrant families and single adults in place.
Though his administration has attempted to discourage immigrants from entering the United States, many believe that now that Biden is president, they will have a better chance.
There have also been more cases of parents sending their children across the border by themselves while they stay in Mexico or Central America.
