WASHINGTON — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the Biden administration’s handling of a new surge of unaccompanied minors on the U.S.-Mexico border amid humanitarian and security concerns, telling “Meet the Press” that the American people will “look back on this and say that we secured the border and we upheld our values.”
Mayorkas emphasized that the administration’s message to those seeking entry is that “the border is closed.” But he said that while the administration will continue to expel families and single adults, they will not send back unaccompanied minors.
“We will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphan children,” Mayorkas said, even as he warned against them coming to the border.
“We are safely processing the children who do come to our border,” he said. “We strongly urge, and the message is clear, not to do so now. I cannot overstate the perils of the journey that they take.”
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The new Homeland Security chief connected some of the problems with the policies of former President Donald Trump’s administration, which he said “dismantled the orderly, humane and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their own country.”
“We are rebuilding those orderly systems both in Mexico, in close partnerships with the Mexican government, and in the countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” he said.
And pointing to the overcrowding concerns made more acute by the pandemic, Mayorkas said that the administration is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services to build new, temporary facilities for unaccompanied minors to get them out of border patrol stations, which he admitted is “no place for a child.”
Last week, NBC News reported that the administration is limiting media access to information about the operations on the border, amounting to what some current and former Customs and Border Protection officials called an unofficial “gag order.”
Mayorkas denied that there’s any gag order. He said that while the administration is focused on navigating the difficult situation, compounded by the pandemic, it is “working” on “providing access” for the American public to see the conditions there.
Mayorkas spoke as the administration battles a sharp rise in unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border. As of Saturday, the Border Patrol had 5,049 unaccompanied children in its custody, according to new data obtained by NBC News.
The influx of arrivals are stressing the system, prompting humanitarian criticism as well as criticism from Republicans, as well as some Democrats, that the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to stem the flow of migrants.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
