As the crisis at the border continues to grow, the Biden administration will house thousands of migrant teen boys in a Dallas convention center - courtesy of American taxpayers - to help deal with the massive influx of unaccompanied children crossing the Southwest U.S. border in droves.
Following the month of February, in which more than 100,000 illegal aliens were apprehended crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, plans have been made to house up to 3,000 migrant teen boys age 15 to 17 in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center to help take the pressure off overwhelmed detention facilities, reported the Associated Press. The convention center is scheduled to remain open for up to 90 days beginning this week.
Not even two months into the Biden administration, border agents continue to encounter waves of illegal immigration higher than all but four months of the Trump presidency. The Health and Human Services Department (HHS), tasked with handling migrant children after they are processed by Customs and Border Protection, is now struggling to find temporary housing for the minors apart from already overcrowded detention facilities that weren't built to contain kids. As a result, Border Patrol is currently holding many children past the legal three-day limit due to the lack of HHS housing.
One tent housing facility in Donna, Texas is reportedly overpacked with 1,000 migrant teens and children, with some of the migrants being forced to sleep on floors and unable to shower for up to five days.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a statement on Saturday, saying, “I am incredibly proud of the agents of the Border Patrol, who have been working around the clock in difficult circumstances to take care of children temporarily in our care. Yet, as I have said many times, a Border Patrol facility is no place for a child.”
On Monday, a group of GOP lawmakers visited the border in El Paso, Texas to gather information on the immigration crisis.
“This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “There’s no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis.”
In February, border agents apprehended nearly 9,500 unaccompanied migrant children coming across the border illegally, nearly double the number in January and the highest peak since May 2019.