The Biden administration on Monday touted its work moving children out of US Customs and Border Protection custody and in to the custody of Health and Human Services — as the agency’s statistics show an increasing flow of migrants crossing America’s southern border illegally.
The Department of Homeland Security announced that as of Saturday, there were just 677 children in CBP custody, an 88% drop from March 28 when more than 5,700 children were in custody. The presentation by DHS included a series of before-and-after photos of a processing facility in Donna, Texas.
Images from late February and mid-March showed long lines and packed holding areas, including rows of children sleeping under foil blankets. The most recent photos, taken April 30, showed theౠ facility to be nearly deserted.
“In March, we faced a critꦚical challenge at our border,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “The men and women if DHS have been working tirelessly over the past several weeks to respond and rebuild. Their efforts have produced dramatic results – results that ensure the safety and security of both the migrants we encounter and the American people.”
However, images of empty processing facilities does not mean the illegal immigrants have stopped co💝ming.
In Ma🍎rch, CPB encountered more than 172,331 illegal immigrants at the US-Mexico border, the most in any month dating back to October 2017, and similar numbers are expected in🅰 April. That followed 101,028 encounters in February of this year.
The number of unaccompanied minors e🔥ntering the US is also surging, with 18,890 encounters reported in March – a 100.3% increase over the 9,431 encounters reported in Fe😼bruary.
Last month, an an☂onymous DHS official alleged that migrant children are being shuttled across the ༺US using taxpayer dollars.
“My understanding is, they are going to several directions and oftentimes the NGOs are involved on some level, the government is involved,” he told Fox News’ Sara Carter.
Republican officials have demanded that President Biden reinstate former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including resuming the construction of a border wall – w🍒hich Biden halted after taking office in January.
The Pentagon announced last week it would cancel any further border wall construction that used military funding.