Authorities have dropped families with children at bus stops in border communities, where they continue their journey north to meet relatives in the United States. Border officials encountered more than 1,360 migrants traveling as part of families on Sunday and only displaced 219 according to records. On March 26, more than 2,100 families were arrested and only 200 were sent back south.
“We see that the numbers are increasing day by day. They have increased tremendously, especially in March, ”said Hugo Zurita, general manager of the Good Neighbor Settlement House in Brownsville, Texas, which provides hot meals and items such as clothing, hand sanitizer and masks to migrant families in the city at Bus Stop.
Republican Congressmen, who vowed to put the issue at the center of their efforts to regain control of Congress, have repeatedly accused the government of spurring the surge in migration with the promise of President Biden to have more compassionate policies on migrants than those imposed under President Donald J. Trump card.
“They will certainly use this as a weapon against us,” said Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas. “It does Biden’s good work. He did a hell of a job with vaccines. It kept us from the news we had. “
Biden’s government continued to apply a pandemic emergency rule to quickly expel single adults, who continued to make up the majority of those detained at the border in March. Immigrant attorneys criticized the rule as a violation of immigration laws that allow migrants to apply for asylum when they reach US soil.
The White House has spoken to at least one member of Congress about the possibility of deporting 16- and 17-year-olds to Mexico, according to one person familiar with the discussions.
The government has also focused its response on addressing the root causes of migration, appointing Vice President Kamala Harris to work with leaders in the region to boost Central America’s economy, and restarting an Obama-era program, which some children may apply to their home region for permission to live with a parent or other relative in the United States.
