Hundreds of infants and toddlers have reportedly been captured by border officers after crossing into the U.S. illegally from Mexico unaccompanied by an adult as a growing torrent of migrants from Central America overwhelm detention centers in Texas.
The U.S. Border Patrol detained 378 children aged two or less who were traveling without a parent or guardian from Oct 1 through June 11, according to data obtained by Fusion from the office of a high-ranking Democratic senator who wasn't identified. Of those, 95 were under a year old.
Parents may be sending their wee ones across the border in hopes they will be allowed to stay, fueled in part by misconceptions among migrants that people with children can enter the U.S. legally.
Children detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Brownsville, Texas, earlier this month
The steady stream of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children is part of a recent surge in Central Americans crossing into the U.S. via the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. About 174,000 people have been arrested by the Border Patrol there since Oct 1, including 52,000 children - a 99 per cent increase from last year. Most of the migrants hail from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The Obama Administration is trying to address the problem by combating the misinformation and opening new detention facilities designed for families in an effort to process and deport them more quickly. The first one will be located on the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's Artesia, New Mexico, campus, according to The Wall Street Journal.
At the moment, the Border Patrol is releasing many of them while they await their deportation proceedings because there is no place to hold them, making it easier for them to blend into the population and remain for years.
Customs and Border Protection agents escort young detainees primarily from Central America to an area to make phone calls
The immigration agency currently has only one detention center designed for families, an 85-bed facility in Pennsylvania.
The rising number of migrants have overwhelmed U.S. authorities at the U.S.'s busiest corridor for crossings in South Texas, forcing them to seek out additional detention space. A plan to bus hundreds to an empty college campus in Lawrenceville, Virginia, was scrapped after a community backlash, according to CBS News.
The government is also trying to ease agents' workload by flying hundreds of migrants to California for processing, the AP reported. Two flights on Monday will ferry about 140 Central American migrants to San Diego and a nearby town, according to Paul Beeson, chief of the Border Patrol for the California city.
A toddler sits on the floor with other detainees at the Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday
The flights are expected to continue every three days, primarily filled with families with young children, but no unaccompanied minors.
Neither plan, however, will help address the growing number of children making the perilous journy across the border alone. Vice President Joe Biden met with Central American leaders in Guatemala on Friday in hopes of discouraging minors from making the voyage and emphasizing that traveling with children does not give migrants a free pass.
Vice President Joe Biden visited Guatemala on Friday in an effort to stem the tide of Central American children and families crossing into the U.S. illegally
'We are prioritizing the need to resolve these cases…in light of the humanitarian crisis caused by the number of crossings,' Mr Biden said. 'Make no mistake, once an individual's case is fully heard, and if he or she does not qualify for asylum, he or she will be removed from the United States and returned home. Everyone should know that.'
Detainees wait in a holding cell at the Brownsville detention center that was part of a media tour the Customs and Border Protection agency hosted
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