Spike in Unaccompanied Minors Crossing the Border

Apprehensions of unaccompanied minors by fiscal year

• The Law
  • Unaccompanied minors may seek asylum in the US
    • Minor Children Applying for Asylum By Themselves uscis.gov
    • 8 U.S. Code § 1158 – Asylum Cornell
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection must transfer the minors to HHS facilities within 72 hours.
  • Once a minor is in HHS custody (Office of Refugee Resettlement), the agency must identify a sponsor eligible to take custody and vet that person

• U.S. races to find bed space for migrant children as number of unaccompanied minors in government custody hits 15,500 cbsnews March 21
  • 5,000 by CBP
  • 10,500 by HHS

• Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility hhs.gov March 23
  • The Carrizo Springs ICF capacity is available for children (age 13-17). Currently, the Carrizo Springs ICF will accommodate approximately 952 children in hard-sided structures.
  • As of March 22, 2021, there are approximately 11,100 UC in ORR care. 
    • ORR = HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement
• Number of teen migrants rises at Dallas emergency shelter as volunteers step up to help DMN March 24
  • About 1,750 boys are now being held at the emergency migrant shelter at the Dallas convention center.
  • Most of the teenagers are from Central America.

• Hundreds of minors are crossing the border each day without their parents. Who are they? WaPo March 11
  • Teenage boys make up the largest group. HHS statistics show that 70 percent of unaccompanied minors are male, and that about 75 percent are ages 15 to 17. 
  • Most unaccompanied minors cross the border into the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Most seek out U.S. border agents to begin the process of making a humanitarian claim.
  • About 90 percent of the minors are released to relatives living in the United States, and in about half those instances, the relative is at least one of their parents. Often, these relatives are living in the United States illegally, and a lack of records can complicate the process.
  • Sponsor data collected by HHS shows the leading destinations are the Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles metro areas, which have large Central American communities. Florida and New York are also among the leading destinations.
  • The decision to send a child or teenager alone is not an irrational act. The odds of being deported are low. DHS statistics show that of the 290,000 minors who have crossed the border without a parent since 2014: 
    • 4.3 percent have been returned to their countries
    • 52 percent had immigration cases pending 
    • 28 percent had been granted humanitarian protection by U.S. courts
    • 16 percent had been ordered to leave, but lacked a confirmed departure or deportation

• Biden’s Policy Changes
  • Remain in Mexico (Migrant Protection Protocols)
    • In 2019 the Trump administration started the Remain in Mexico program that sent asylum seekers back across the border to remain in Mexico to await their U.S. court dates. In February the Biden administration said it would begin processing about 25,000 migrants with active claims.
  • Title 42
    • Title 42 is a public health law the Trump administration began using in March 2020 to immediately expel anyone apprehended on the southern border. In November, a federal judge ordered a halt to such deportations of minors. In February, the Biden administration began accepting unaccompanied minors.
  • Central American Minors Program
    • In March the Biden administration said that it would restart the Central American Minors program — halted under the Trump administration — which allows children in danger to apply to enter the US from their home countries instead of having to first arrive at the US-Mexico border.

• The Facts on the Increase in Illegal Immigration factcheck March 23, 2021 

• While the bulk of the increase comes from single adults, the number of children arriving at the border without an adult has gone up as well. Here’s a breakdown of the type of apprehensions by month — for single adults, unaccompanied children and those traveling in a family unit — dating back to 2013, the earliest point of data for family units.

• In a phone interview, Tony Payan told us that while the apprehension numbers are spiking now, “this is not a new crisis.” Instead, it has been going on since 2014, “when we first saw unaccompanied minors and family units arriving at the border and turning themselves in,” and the problem has plagued each administration since.
  • Tony Payan is director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy,
• As the chart above shows, apprehension spikes under the past two presidents in 2014 and 2019 similarly included sizable increases in family units and unaccompanied children arriving at the border.
• Immigration experts, writing in the Washington Post, agree that “the current increase in apprehensions fits a predictable pattern of seasonal changes in undocumented immigration combined with a backlog of demand because of 2020’s coronavirus border closure.”

• Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said the increases of families and unaccompanied children in 2014 and 2019 “overwhelmed U.S. resources.” In both of those years, the flow of immigrants “were driven primarily by longstanding push and pull factors,” such as poverty and violence in migrants’ home countries, and economic opportunity in the U.S., family ties and border policies on children and families.
• The difference this year is that the increase overwhelming U.S. resources “has been entirely driven by unaccompanied child migrants,” Pierce said. The flow is also due to the usual push and pull factors, as well as the pandemic-caused economic crisis and recent hurricanes.

Addendum

• There’s no migrant ‘surge’ at the U.S. southern border. Here’s the data. WaPo March 23
  • We analyzed monthly CBP data from 2012 to now and found no crisis or surge that can be attributed to Biden administration policies. Rather, the current increase in apprehensions fits a predictable pattern of seasonal changes in undocumented immigration combined with a backlog of demand because of 2020’s coronavirus border closure.

• Article continued
  • As the blue line shows, the CBP has recorded a 28 percent increase in migrants apprehended from January to February 2021, from 78,442 to 100,441. 
  • It appears that migrants are continuing to enter the United States in the same numbers as in fiscal year 2019 — plus the pent-up demand from people who would have come in fiscal year 2020, but for the pandemic.

• ‘Sitting on their hands’: Biden transition officials say Trump officials delayed action on child migrant surge nbcnews.com March 24

• Fact-checking claim about Trump administration changes to the immigration system Politifact
  • Persistent corruption, poverty, lack of opportunity and violence in Central America drive people to leave their families and seek a better life in the United States. Recently, hurricanes in Central America made things worse for many people, ruining their crops and displacing them from their homes. The coronavirus pandemic has also left many people without a job.
  • Under federal law, immigrants may be granted asylum if they have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. To apply for asylum, people have to be physically present in the U.S. They can apply even if they arrive without legal permission.
  • The Trump administration revamped the asylum-seeking process in many ways, including by:
    • Denying asylum to people who did not ask for protection in another country first;
    • Entering into agreements with Central American countries so that they’d take asylum seekers who would have otherwise applied for protection in the United States; and
    • Launching the “Remain in Mexico” program that sent asylum seekers to Mexico to wait there for a resolution of their case. Previous administrations allowed people into the United States as their case made its way through the complex immigration system. (It can take years for cases to be resolved.)
  • Trump’s administration also tried to discourage people from coming to the U.S. to apply for asylum by implementing a policy that ultimately separated parents and children upon arrival at the border.
  • Separately, Trump also weakened another venue for legal migration — the U.S. refugee program. People apply for refugee admission from outside the U.S. (in their home countries or in refugee camps elsewhere). Before leaving office, President Barack Obama said the U.S. should let in as many as 110,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017. When Trump took over, he said that was too much and capped it at 50,000. Trump continued to lower the caps every year he was in office. Biden has pledged to significantly raise the admissions cap.
  • Mayorkas’ statement also said that Trump “tore down” the Central American Minors program — created in 2014 by the Obama administration to address a surge of children fleeing gang violence and arriving alone at the border. The program sought to deter Central American children from making the dangerous trip north.
  • The program allowed certain parents lawfully present in the United States to petition for their children in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to come in as refugees. Children ineligible for refugee admission but at risk of violence were eligible for immigration parole (allowed into the U.S. temporarily, but not formally admitted under the U.S. immigration system).
  • The Trump administration in 2017 decided to end the program. Mayorkas and Democratic lawmakers argue that its absence contributes to the current surge.