The numbers of unaccompanied migrant children who are apprehended by Border Patrol crossing the southern border from Mexico into the United States have increased in the first three weeks of 2022 compared to the last of 2021.
Border agents detained
double or triple the number of minors
on some days in January than at the end of last year, according to data from the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) released by the EFE agency.
On December 30, for example, 150 children who crossed the border alone, without a parent or guardian, were apprehended.
Just a few weeks later, on Thursday January 20, 336 were arrested.
And the day before, Wednesday the 19th, the difference is even greater: 485 children.
[Mexico will deliver the remains of a Venezuelan girl drowned at the border]
An unaccompanied migrant girl cries at an intake area after turning herself in with others while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, in Roma, Texas.Gregory Bull/AP
Since coming to power a year ago, the Joe Biden administration has had to deal with a significant increase in the numbers of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border.
The avalanche forced the Administration in March and April 2021 to adapt temporary shelters in convention centers in various regions of the country.
The Biden Administration had made relative progress at the beginning of 2022 on the issue when it managed to reduce the number of unaccompanied children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to less than 10,000.
It was the first time authorities had reached that figure since March of last year.
As of Friday, there were 8,254 children in HHS custody and 642 children being processed by CBP, for
a total of 8,896 children apprehended
.
[The Government will offer legal advice to asylum seekers in seven border cities]
Fear, nightmares and loss of appetite: the traumas of migrant children returned to Guatemala
Jan. 3, 202202:26
The figure is significantly low compared to April 2021, when migrant children in US custody exceeded 24,000.
The Biden administration also made some progress in reunifying children with their families, although it is estimated that there are still more than 1,000 migrant children unaccounted for.
But authorities are facing a continuing surge of minors at the border that could undo gains.
[The reunion of a migrant minor who was separated from his parents and incarcerated by ICE as an adult]
A total of 26,398 minors were apprehended at the southern border in the final months of 2021, from October to December 12, according to the most recent data from CBP.
Most of them came from
Guatemala
, about 42%,
Honduras
, more than 24%,
Mexico
, 16%, and
El Salvador
, almost 13%.
