Now the head of Customs and Border Protection is reiterating calls for Congress to provide more funding to handle the influx of migrants crossing the border.
“I’ve explained to Congress … that what we’re seeing with these flows, of huge numbers of families with lots of children, young children, as well as unaccompanied minors coming into Border Patrol custody after crossing the border unlawfully, that our stations are not built for that group that’s crossing today,” CBP Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday.
“They were built 30 to 40 years ago for single adult males, and we need a different approach. We need help from Congress. We need to budget for medical care and mental health care for children in our facilities.”
In the past three weeks, two Guatemalan children have died after they were detained with their fathers after crossing the border.
The CBP chief called the young boy’s death “a tragic loss.”
“On behalf of US Customs and Border Protection, our deepest sympathies go out to the family,” McAleenan said Tuesday.
He also announced a series of new procedures following the two children’s deaths:
• First, Border Patrol is conducting secondary medical checks on all children in CBP care and custody, with a focus on children under age 10.
• Third, CBP is considering options for medical assistance with other governmental partners, the agency said. That could include support from the Coast Guard as well as possibly more aid from the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Finally, CBP is reviewing its policies, with a focus on the care and custody of children under 10 — both at intake and beyond 24 hours in custody, the agency said.
What happened to 8-year-old boy
Castro called for a congressional investigation into the boy’s death.
“While the CBP notified Congress within 24 hours as mandated by law, we must ensure that we treat migrants and asylum-seekers with human dignity and provide the necessary medical care to anyone in the custody of the United States government,” the congressman said Tuesday.
Many people wonder why asylum-seekers cross illegally rather than at a legal point of entry. But asylum-seekers are often at the mercy of wherever smugglers drop them off, which can be far from a legal point of entry.
Dozens of hospital trips every day
The Department of Homeland Security said it encounters hundreds of thousands of migrants a year. Before this month, there were six deaths in 2018 in Border Patrol custody, and none of those were children, DHS officials said.
So the death of a child in custody is “an extraordinarily rare occurrence,” McAleenan told CBS.
Before Jakelin’s death, no child had died in CBP custody in more than a decade, the Department of Homeland security said.
But now, as more children cross the border, “We’re doing dozens of hospital trips every single day with children that have fevers or manifest other medical conditions,” McAleenan said Wednesday.
“We’ve asked for help. We’ve got two Coast Guard teams deploying today to support our Border Patrol agents in checking the welfare of children in our custody.”
When asked whether the government shutdown for a border wall was worth it, McAleenan told CBS yes.
“We need border security investments, absolutely,” he said.
CNN’s Chuck Johnston, Nick Valencia, Eliott C. McLaughlin and Geneva Sands contributed to this report.
Source : Nbcnewyork
