Biden Administration Says Reopening Migrant Children Border Facility Was a 'Difficult Decision'

The Biden administration responded this week to criticism from progressives and immigration advocates that its policies mirror similar conditions under predecessor Donald Trump.

"What we are not doing — what the last administration did — was separate kids, rip them from the arms of their parents at the border," Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters Wednesday.

"We are not doing that," Psaki, 42, said. "That is immoral and that is not the approach of this administration."

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that a detention facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, was recently reopened to temporarily house up to 700 unaccompanied migrant children between ages 13 to 17.

Government officials have said that due to COVID-19 precautions, the Department of Health and Human Services under Joe Biden needed to reopen such emergency shelters to increase capacity as each facility can house fewer people.

Psaki called it a "difficult decision" Wednesday, one day after clarifying the Biden administration's policy was "not to expel unaccompanied children who arrive at the border."

The White House spokeswoman said the administration needed to "expand and open additional facilities" to meet COVID-19 protocols in response to a recent spike in unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

CBS News recently reported that 5,700 children arrived unaccompanied at the border in January. That number was the highest one-month total in recent years, according to the Post.

As of Sunday, the paper reported about 7,000 children who arrived without accompaniment were in HHS custody.

Migrant children detained by the department stay in facilities an average for 42 days, according to the Post, while the HHS under Biden said its goal is for children to stay no longer than 30 days.

"Our objective is to move these kids quickly from there to vetted, sponsored families and to places where they can safely be," Psaki said Wednesday.

She described the Texas facility as "revamped."

However, the facility sparked outcry among those who said it was not far enough apart from former President Trump's carceral approach to immigration.

Trump's key policies — which Biden has moved to undo — included "remain in Mexico," which barred those seeking asylum from expedient border crossings, leaving them in limbo in Mexico, where they often reported being at risk; and "zero tolerance," which saw thousands of migrant families separated at the border because the adults were being prosecuted for entering the country.

At the same time, those adults and children often said they were being held separately in inhumane conditions.

President Biden, 78, signed an executive order last month that called for a task force to find the parents of the migrant children separated from their families under the Trump administration.

But news that more children were still being detained in government facilities raised red flags among those calling for immigration reform.

Biden had campaigned on reversing Trump's approach to immigration, though his White House's steps so far underlined the extent to which America's immigration system remains one of the country's thorniest issues.

"This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay—no matter the administration or party," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading progressive, tweeted Tuesday, in response to the Texas facility's reopening.

"When I read they were opening again, I cried," San Antonio, Texas-based activist Rosey Abuabara told the Post.

Abuabara was arrested for protesting the facility in 2019, according to the paper, during the one month the facility was open during the Trump administration.

The White House maintains its treatment of children at the border is much different than conditions under Trump.

HHS spokesman Mark Weber told the Post the agency was moving away from Trump's "law-enforcement focused" policy. While one immigration activist likened the facility's reopening to a "concentration camp expansion," under the U.S.'s long-criticized immigration system, the Post's on-the-ground description of the facility was different.

According to the paper: "There is a bright blue hospital tent with white bunk beds inside. A legal services trailer has the Spanish word 'Bienvenidos,' or welcome, on a banner on its roof. There are trailers for classrooms, a barber shop, a hair salon. The facility has its own ambulances and firetrucks, as well as its own water supply."

"Every kid that comes into this program is a symptom of a broken immigration system," Weber, the HHS spokesman, told the paper. "So today, we've got over 7,000 symptoms of a broken immigration system."

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