WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Tuesday that the United States must reach the largest number of people seized on the U.S.-Mexico border in two decades.
“We are on our way to meet more individuals on the southwestern border than in the past 20 years. We are kicking out many single adults and families. We are not expelling unaccompanied children, “Mayorkas said in a statement that addressed what he described as a” difficult “situation on the border.
“Our goal is a safe, legal and orderly immigration system based on our fundamental priorities: keeping our borders safe, dealing with the situation of children as the law requires and allowing families to be together,” he said.
Mayorkas explained that most of the people seized on the southwestern border are single adults, and they are “currently being expelled under the authority of the Disease Control and Prevention Center to manage the public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Single adults from Mexico and countries in the Northern Triangle like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras “are quickly expelled to Mexico,” he said. Likewise, families detained on the border who came from Mexico or other countries are being expelled to Mexico “unless Mexico is unable to receive families,” he said.
“Mexico’s limited capacity has depleted our resources, including in the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas,” he said. “When Mexico’s capacity is reached, we sue families and put them in immigration proceedings here in the United States.”
Mayorkas said the United States is meeting many children on the southwest border every day who are not accompanied by their parents or legal guardian. Part of the problem, he said, is that the Department of Health and Human Services is unable to accommodate the current number of children it encounters.
Republicans have accused the current government of creating a “crisis” at the border, saying that President Joe Biden’s relaxation of some immigration policies has encouraged people to try to enter the United States illegally.
But Mayorkas attributed the increase on the border to poverty, high levels of violence and corruption in Mexico and in the countries of the Northern Triangle. He also attributed the high numbers to the Trump administration, which said it had “completely dismantled the asylum system”.
“The system was destroyed, the facilities were closed and they cruelly expelled young children into the hands of the traffickers,” he said, adding that the Biden government had to rebuild the system.
Mayorkas said the United States is building new facilities to increase its capacity, working with Mexico to receive expelled families and developing a more formal refugee program.
“We are creating joint processing centers so that children can be placed in the care of HHS immediately after the Border Patrol finds them,” he said. “We are also identifying and equipping additional facilities for HHS to house unaccompanied children until they are placed with family or sponsors. These are short-term solutions for dealing with the increase in unaccompanied children. “
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is installing two facilities in Texas to handle the flow of unaccompanied minors. One, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, accommodates up to 3,000 unaccompanied teenage migrant boys, two American officials told NBC News. The other will be a camp in Midland. Health and Human Services will manage both sites. Children arrive at the centers of the border processing facilities and are then transferred to relatives or other sponsors.
“FEMA is supporting the Department of Health and Human Services response to the arrival of unaccompanied children on the southwestern border” and is “actively engaged with HHS to rapidly expand the capacity for safe and appropriate shelter and to provide basic food, water and medicines Care . ” said a DHS spokesman.
The Associated Press first reported the conversion of the Dallas Convention Center to help alleviate overcrowding at border processing facilities.
Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff contributed.