bNEW YORK (Dagbladet): In recent days, American media have CNN, AP and CBS News reported extreme problems with the treatment of a record number of minor asylum seekers by US authorities on the border with Mexico.
On Saturday night, the Biden administration announces that they have mobilized the emergency aid apparatus in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to deal with the crisis, reports Washington Post.
Thousands of children
Thousands of children, who have come to the United States alone, are kept in centers on the border and have to sleep in tents or on the floor. Many say they have not had a shower for several days or contacted their parents, say lawyers who have interviewed the children, according to CNN.
– For a hypocrite
“Some of the boys say it was so crowded that they had to switch to sleeping on the floor,” lawyer Neha Desai, who represents some of the children now in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) in Donna, Texas, told CBS News.
On March 2, there were more than 1800 people in the center in Donna. That is 729 percent more than there is actually capacity for with coronary restrictions.
Many of those Desai interviewed had not had a shower even though they had stayed there for more than five days.
– Stunning number
– It was a staggering number of very young children, says Desai.
Several of the children said that they had not been allowed to call or communicate with family members.
“They cried hysterically because they wanted to talk to their families,” Desai told CBS.
Lawyers from the National Center for Youth Law have spoken to dozens of children in Donna, Texas. The organization’s senior adviser, Leecia Welch, told CNN that the children were “terrified, crying and worried about not being able to talk to family members.” Some of the children should not have seen daylight for several days. Others say they were lucky if they were allowed to go outdoors for 20 minutes at intervals of several days.
Biden immediately reverses Trump policy
– Humanitarian crisis
– Donna is fast becoming a humanitarian crisis. We understand that the administration inherited a disaster, but I can not say clearly enough how urgent the situation is with the growing number of young people, children without parents. “We have talked to several desperate children who do not understand why they can not talk to their parents, see their siblings in Donna or get some fresh air,” Welch told CNN.
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Earlier this week, the TV channel reported that CBP now has more than 3,700 minor asylum seekers in its custody. That is a record number.
In addition, another 8,500 children and teens are in custody with Health and Human Services (HHS) while awaiting placement with parents or relatives already living in the United States, Washington Post.
Now US President Joe Biden is sending resources from FEMA to deal with the crisis that has overwhelmed the immigration system on the Mexican border. According to the plan, they will now assist for at least 90 days.
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– Not a place for children
– I am incredibly proud of the agents in CBP, who have worked around the clock in difficult circumstances to take care of the children temporarily. But as I have said many times, CBP centers are not a place for children. Our goal is for children who come without parents to be transferred to HHS as soon as possible – in line with legal requirements and in the best interests of the children, says Minister of Internal Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, in a statement.
Shortly after he became president, Biden announced that he would no longer send unaccompanied minor asylum seekers back to Mexico without parents, as the Trump administration did.
This has contributed to a sharp increase in the number of minor asylum seekers coming to the United States across the border from Mexico. In recent days alone, about 700 children and teens have crossed the Texas border, according to the Washington Post.
So far, the Biden administration has not answered why they were not better prepared for this sharp increase.
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