More than 3,200 unaccompanied migrant children were in the custody of Customs and Border Protection, according to Monday’s documents. Of these, about 2,600 were awaiting placement in shelters suitable for minors, but there were just over 500 beds available to accommodate them.
The latest data comes in the wake of a trip to the US-Mexico border by senior administration officials to assess the situation there amid an increasing number of arrests and indicates a rapidly increasing trend for unaccompanied children entering the United States. Less than a week ago, there were about 1,700 children in custody of the Border Patrol.
As of Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden had not yet been briefed by his top advisers about the weekend trip, which included a visit to a facility for unaccompanied migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas – the first facility for children migrants to open since Biden took office.
Employees were in fact-finding mode, said an acquaintance, and many were taking notes during conversations. Biden is expected to be informed in the coming days, as advisers spent part of the trip comparing notes and planning how to present the information to the president.
Among those who attended was Susan Rice, a former national security adviser to former President Barack Obama who now heads Biden’s Domestic Policy Council. A source familiar with the visit told CNN that Rice was involved during the visit and, at times, lobbied Department of Health and Human Services officials, who run shelters for unaccompanied migrants, about how they were preparing to respond to the increase and prosecute migrant children more efficiently.
The growing number of unaccompanied children has sounded the alarm among authorities struggling to find shelter to care for children in the midst of an ongoing pandemic that has resulted in some places keeping some beds unoccupied to comply with health guidelines.
Monday’s data reveals the system’s continuing bottleneck, with more children in custody than the United States government is prepared to care for. He also emphasizes the obstacles faced by the Biden government in trying to adopt a more humanitarian approach to immigration, while addressing the realities at the border.
The numbers are impressive. For comparison, at the height of the 2019 border crisis – when there were overcrowded facilities and children sleeping on the ground – there were about 2,600 unaccompanied children in the custody of the Border Patrol, a former CBP official told CNN.
First Lady Julissa Reynoso’s chief of staff briefly discussed her trip to the US-Mexico border as part of a delegation of senior government officials that also included Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“We spoke to many of the people involved, including children. We are trying to manage this in an orderly manner, but we are very attentive to the human cost here, and in light of the fact that we are talking about children. So, this is something that we are managing,” he said. Reynoso to reporters on Monday.
The group flew from Washington on a military plane and made its first stop at the CBP tent in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, which has been suing undocumented migrants. From there, the group flew north along the border with Laredo, where they landed and drove to the facilities that shelter children in Carrizo Springs. The trip lasted almost all Saturday.
At both locations, officials spoke to some of the people who are in charge of managing them, some of the ordinary CBP and HHS officials who work there and some of the migrants who are detained on the premises, including some of the children. Several travel staff speak Spanish and can communicate directly with detained migrants.
Once in care, case managers will work to place children with a sponsor, such as a parent or relative, in the United States, but as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and precautions to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the department has only been able to use a little more than half of the beds it has for children.
This trend seems to continue. More than 1,300 children were in custody of the Border Patrol for more than 72 hours, according to documents. Most children are 13 or older.
This story has been updated with additional reports.
Kevin Liptak of CNN contributed to this report.