US-Mexico border on the cusp of its largest migrant surge in 20 years

The United States is dealing with the largest surge of migrants at its southwestern border in 20 years, the Department of Homeland Security stated on Tuesday.
Border management officers are at the moment grappling with growing numbers of kids who’re attempting to cross into the nation from Mexico by themselves.
The variety of tried border crossings by individuals from Mexico and neighboring international locations has steadily elevated over the past 12 months, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated in a press release. The majority of single adults and households are being turned away, he stated.
DHS: COVID issues add to the surge
Decades of poverty, violence and corruption in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have led to thousands and thousands of individuals attempting to flee to the US.
And circumstances within the Latin American international locations have continued to deteriorate. Two latest hurricanes have made dwelling circumstances even worse, whereas the coronavirus pandemic sophisticated the border state of affairs additional nonetheless, Mayorkas stated.
“We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,” he stated.
US border brokers carried out 100,441 apprehensions or expulsions of migrants on the border with Mexico in February alone, the White House’s Customs and Border Protection stated final week, the best month-to-month complete in two years.
Children touring alone
Single adults make up nearly all of people who find themselves being expelled, Mayorkas stated. Children who arrive alone, some as younger as six years outdated, are usually not being turned again.
The US authorities is making a joint processing heart to switch the kids promptly into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and is looking for further shelters for them, Mayorkas added.
President Joe Biden’s administration has been struggling to hurry up the processing of lots of of youths beneath 18 who’re crossing the southern border alone every single day.
“We will have, I believe by the next month, enough of those beds to take care of these children who have no place to go, but they need to be taken care of,” Biden stated in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday.
Republicans: Biden’s immigration insurance policies accountable
Republicans in Congress accused the president of inflicting the border surge by promising to roll again a few of his predecessor’s hardline insurance policies on immigration.
“It didn’t have to happen,” House of Representatives Republican chief Kevin McCarthy stated at an El Paso border facility on Monday. “This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration.”
The mounting criticism noticed Biden inform potential migrants on Tuesday: “Don’t come over … Don’t leave your town or city or community.”