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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Over a quarter of a million unaccompanied children crossed the U.S. – Mexico border since President Joe Biden was sworn into the White House, according to a report by the Washington Examiner.
Eight in 10
of the children were released into the interior of the United States.
“If anyone
had any doubt about whether the chaos ensuing for the last 18 months at the
Southwest border was a full-blown humanitarian crisis, they need only take one
look at the staggering number of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) who have
crossed the border illegally," said New York Rep. John Katko , the most
senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, in a statement to
the Washington Examiner.
How many children crossed into the US-Mexico border as of March 2021?
The surge
initially began in March 2021 when about 18,700 children crossed the border
that month, a record which topped all of 2010, according to the Washington
Examiner.
The Biden
administration has seen more than 10,000 children in federal holding facilities
daily while another 250 to 600 children are apprehended at the border often
facilitated by smugglers paid by their families, the Washington Examiner
reported.
"Incentivized
by President Biden’s weak, open border policies, children are being sent on a
traumatic journey exposed to the elements and placed in unimaginable danger by
human smugglers who don’t see a person, but, rather, only dollar signs,"
Katko added, according to the Washington Examiner.
Since February 2021, 262, 756 minor children crossed the border as Mr. Biden marked his one year in office, according to the Washington Examiner. 40,319 of this staggering numbers were Mexican with about 85% of remaining children detained and discharged into the U.S. to adults, the Washington Examiner quoted Border Patrol data.
Unaccompanied
minors began pouring into the U.S. from the southern border in the early 2010s.
That number has dropped over the years but the current resurgence is the result
of Biden’s broken border system.
A 2008 law
prevented the removal of children from noncontiguous counties such as Mexico
and Canada on grounds that they may be trafficking victims.
The minors
who successfully cross the border are taken into custody by Border Patrol
agents for processing and then transferred to the Department of Health and
Human Services for care by its Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to the
Washington Examiner.
These children are housed by the government for about 30 days pending a search for a suitable adult in the U.S. who can care for the child. After Biden decided not to turn away children, the number surged to nearly 20,000, which included over 5,500 in Border Patrol detention.