The Biden Government advises that migrant children "are not guaranteed" to stay and "many will not qualify."

The Secretary of Health, Xavier Becerra, assured this Thursday in statements to Noticias Telemundo that not all migrant minors who arrive alone will be able to obtain asylum and stay in the country.

"A child who crosses the border without papers is not guaranteed to stay here in the United States

, and many of those children are not going to qualify under the law of this country," Becerra said.

"Not everything is easily resolved with nothing more than crossing the border as a child, there is much more because in this country if we want to advance as a democracy we have to obey the law," added the Secretary of Health, who comes from an immigrant family and has in charge of welcoming minors who cross the border.

"It is not a change" of policy, he wanted to clarify, but it does represent at least a hardening in the speech of the Administration chaired by Joe Biden, which has faced a sharp increase in arrival in its first 100 days in the White House. of migrant minors.

This crisis (which the government has tried not to describe as such) has somewhat obscured its management on other issues, and has served the Republicans as a battering ram to criticize the president.

Migrant children at a facility for minors who cross the border alone located in Donna, Texas, on March 30.

AP

The Administration of former President Donald Trump sealed the border in spring 2020, rejecting almost all asylum applications due to the coronavirus pandemic, considering that the arrival of immigrants increased the risk of contagion for the US population.

Biden has maintained this measure (known as Title 42), but has made an exception so far: minors.

"All of them should go back," the president said at the end of March, at the height of this crisis, of the migrants crossing the border, but added: "The only people we are not going to leave sitting there, on the other side of the Rio Grande, alone and without help, is the children. "

Whether due to this policy change or other circumstances, the fact is that the number of migrant minors who try to cross the border alone has skyrocketed: if in October 2020 there were a thousand,

only in January there were 5,800 and in March almost 19,000

.

In general, the number of migrants intercepted at the border has also risen in these months (which are historically the most affluent due to good weather), to more than 172,000 in March, compared to 100,000 in February. But the vast majority of single adults are returned to Mexico almost immediately, a policy that also affects families. Only the minors had the opportunity to stay, although

the increase in their arrival has collapsed not only the border authorities but also the Department of Health

, which Becerra directs, and which barely has enough shelters to accommodate them while a host family finds them.

"I did not take this position so as not to transparently tell the people the truth," said Becerra on Thursday, a day after Biden's speech to the nation from Congress, in which his words on immigration hardly added any news.

Will a bipartisan solution be achieved to regularize immigrants?

A lawyer analyzes it

April 29, 202103: 01

"It hurts me to tell the truth, to communicate to the people, to the parents, but it is important because we know that many of these children never reach the American border; when they arrive, they arrive damaged, and what we want parents to know is that there is a cost, and not only the cost of paying the coyote, there is a great cost; and I do not want to enrich the coyotes, that those who are playing an illegal game with children get richer, I want to see the wealth of youth that it be successful, but that it has it in a legal way, "added Becerra.

“What is important to know is that,

while that child is temporarily in the United States, he will receive legal treatment, responsible treatment

, because here, at least under this Government, we respect what it is to be a child and know well that we have to protect the interests of that child, "he added," but I do not address the immigration issue of that child, I address the humanitarian needs of that child;

We will see what happens to that child, whether he has to return to his country of origin or not. "

[Biden's First 100 Days: Accomplished more than many, but these critical promises on immigration, economics and COVID-19 remain unfulfilled]

Becerra assured that the humanitarian treatment that minors must receive while in federal custody cannot be confused with "letting those children stay here if they really do not have the right."

"We have laws, we have to do everything under the law, including the president of the United States," he settled.

He added in any case that, as the son of immigrants and the father of three children, "he would like to see the opportunity" to stay in the United States "for everyone."

"But I want to see that opportunity because we are a just country that follows the law, and we all have to follow the law, including those children," he concluded.