As Central America reckons with the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermaths of hurricanes Eta and Iota, a growing number of unaccompanied children are arriving at the U.S. Southern border. The Biden administration has announced that it will mobilize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), responsible for responding to natural disasters and other crises, to help mitigate the situation and relocate the minors.
The ongoing public health crisis is posing unique challenges to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), particularly as it relates to unaccompanied minors, as Secretary Mayorkas explained in a statement. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, adults and accompanied children arriving at the southern border are being returned to Mexico. Unaccompanied minors, however, are currently being housed in holding facilities in record numbers, with some 3,200 children currently held, as the number of children arriving is growing faster than the agencies are able to transfer them. The Biden administration has stopped short of declaring a humanitarian crisis at the border, as President Trump did in 2018 and President Obama did in 2014, but is taking measures to alleviate the worsening situation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she is pleased with the decision to mobilize FEMA, calling the situation a “humanitarian challenge to all of us” and adding that “the administration has inherited is a broken system at the border and they are working to correct that in the children’s interest.”
“As I have said many times, a Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” Secretary Mayorkas said. In response, FEMA will spend the next 90 days helping U.S. Customs and Border Protection process and relocate the children, who will be placed with family members, sponsors, or volunteers until their cases are adjudicated. The Secretary said that the mobilization of FEMA and its resources will help avoid treating children found at the border as detainees of Customs and Border Protection, as they will be moved into the care of the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) more quickly. In the meantime, FEMA will also work to expand HSS facilities compliant with Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines that are suitable to care for the children until their relocation.
Working to address the root causes of Central American migration has been a part of the Biden administration’s immigration platform since the campaign. The President’s immigration bill authorizes funding to the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to address issues like corruption, violence and lack of economic opportunities that often drive families to make the difficult decision to leave their countries or, as we are currently seeing, send off their children to make the journey alone.