The number of unaccompanied migrant children who may be crossing the southern border into our country this year—some 117,000 kids— is set to surpass an all-time record.
That’s according to “unreleased data” from the Department of Homeland Security—data that was to be presented to President Joe Biden on Tuesday by the White House Domestic Policy Council (DCP), as The New York Post and other outlets reported early Wednesday morning.
“Despite establishing multiple new tent-style shelters and loosening COVID-19 restrictions, the DCP is telling Biden that the administration will fall short of its needs by a couple thousand,” The Post also noted.
Related: Trump at CPAC 2021: Biden Has Already ‘Failed’ as President
“The replacement of former President Donald Trump, who maintained a hard line on immigration, with Biden, who has undone some of his predecessor’s key border initiatives, has set off a new caravan to the U.S. border of Central American and Mexican migrants, including thousands of unescorted children,” said The Post.
Yet on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—confirmed as secretary a month ago—insisted to reporters that there is no crisis at the border.
Rather, he said it is a “challenge.” He then blamed today’s border issues on the Trump administration.
“Let me explain to you why [repairing America’s immigration system] is hard and why it is going to take time,” Mayorkas said on Monday. “It is important to understand what we have inherited … To put it succinctly, the prior administration dismantled our nation’s immigration system in its entirety,” he claimed.
The Biden briefing, which was to take place yesterday, was to explain the “need for 20,000 beds to shelter an expected crush of child migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border,” Axios reported—saying the issue was becoming “the administration’s first new crisis.”
Related: Illegal Immigrants Are Not Being Tested for COVID
Biden confirmed that the briefing took place. He told reporters, “Yes, I did,” when asked if he received the briefing.
A reporter then followed up with, “What did you learn?”
“A lot,” Biden responded—and walked out of the room.
In his keynote address on Sunday at CPAC 2021 in Orlando, Florida, Trump hit Biden hard on the impending border crisis and other issues.
“Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history,” Trump said bluntly. He also called the new Biden administration “anti-jobs, anti-families, anti-border, anti-energy, anti-women and anti-science.”
Trump also said, “It took the new administration only a few weeks to turn this unprecedented accomplishment [of securing America’s southern border] into a self-inflicted humanitarian and national security disaster.”
For more information on this issue and reaction to it, see these tweets.
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—by CNJ Staff