On Sunday, 3,130 children were in the care of CBP, an agency that is not supposed to care for children for long periods of time. This is a decrease from the March 28 high of 5,767 since the government began providing data on advances in relief from border patrol stations.
The average detention time for unaccompanied migrant children in CBP is still well above the legal limit of 72 hours and is 122 hours, according to CNN.
In the past few days, officials have been transferring increasing numbers of children from CBP custody to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees a protective network for migrant children and has opened a number of pop-up sites for house children until they do may be released to a godfather such as a parent or relative in the United States.
As a result, the number of children in HHS detention has risen: As of Sunday, 18,027 children were in HHS detention.
“What we do every day is, ‘OK, where are we? How many people came in today? Where are they going? How many beds do we have? What are any blocks in the system to remove children from the system to keep them with a White House official told CNN earlier. “There are a million little things that help increase that throughput of children.”
Biden’s government spends at least $ 62 million a week caring for unaccompanied migrant children in HHS custody.
The daily cost per child is more than double that of the department’s protection program already in place – at about $ 775 per day compared to about $ 290 per day, according to CNN. HHS cited the need to develop facilities and hire staff quickly as one of the reasons emergency shelters are more expensive.
The Biden government is also trying to speed up this process by encouraging parents or guardians, many of whom are undocumented, to remove their children from custody. The children remain in US custody until a sponsor is identified and verified.
Comments are closed.