Mayorkas noted Tuesday the United States is on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years

President Joe Biden's administration faces a growing issue at the U.S.-Mexican border, where an increasing number of migrant children seeking asylum are detained. 

Though the White House has maintained the border is closed, migrant children are let in rather than being turned awaybecause officials said it would be too dangerous for them to make their journey back to their home countries on their own. 

Biden administration officials and lawmakers on both sides are grappling with how to respond to the situation at the border.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Tuesday “the situation at the southwest border is difficult."

“We are working around the clock to manage it, and we will continue to do so," he said. "That is our job."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Sunday called the situation a “humanitarian crisis," a label the Biden administration has avoided. Republicans on Capitol Hill label the surge of migrant children as “Biden’s border crisis.”

Here's why we're seeing an increase number of children seeking asylum at the border and what is being done about it:
Is there a surge of migrants at the border?
The number of unaccompanied migrant children seeking asylum at the nation’s southern border began rising late last year, before Biden was inaugurated as president. 

As of Sunday morning, more than 4,200 unaccompanied migrant children were being held in short-term holding facilities, according to CBS News. Of those, 3,000 had been there longer than 72 hours. Migrant children are supposed to be moved from the short-term facilities within 72 hours. The facilities are jail-like and not suited for long-term containment.

Mayorkas noted Tuesday the United States is on “pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.” U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reports “encounters,” in addition to apprehensions. Therefore, the numbers include repeated crossings by single individuals. For example, in El Paso, Texas, the average for one adult is 10 crossings.

“The administration has opened no legal way for people to come into the United States so this is going to continue to happen,” said Linda Rivas, executive director for the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which provides pro bono legal assistance in El Paso. “We would love to see an end to Title 42 but we could also just simply reopen the ports and make them functional again and allow asylum seekers to present themselves at the port. It’s taking so long.”
White House: Change in administration may be driving surge
The Biden administration said it's seeing more migrants being held because of the change of rhetoric from President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies.

“Surges tend to respond to hope, and there was a significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of ... pent-up demand,” Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the southern border, said last week during a White House press briefing. “I certainly think that the idea that a more humane policy would be in place may have driven people to make that decision.”

In his first weeks in office, Biden stopped construction on a border wall and began unwinding several of Trump’s policies, such as stopping the Migrant Protection Protocol, which forced migrants to wait for U.S. immigration hearings in Mexico.
The Biden administration has kept one key policy in place from the Trump administration, Title 42, which allows the Border Patrol to expel undocumented migrants to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in holding facilities.
“Hope” isn’t the only factor driving migrants to the border. Experts said the increased numbers at the border follow a trend that happens every spring.

Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles' Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, said immigration patterns are “cyclical,” and historically, the United States has seen a rise in migrants seeking asylum during the springtime. He noted it’s largely because it’s the end of the rainy season.

“A lot of what we're seeing now is part of a cyclical phenomenon around this time of year, people make the decision to migrate,” he said.

Mayorkas said in a statement Tuesday that the United States experienced surges of migrants in 2019 and 2014.

Hinojosa-Ojeda said some of the migrants held by the United States  waited in Mexican border towns for years because of Trump policies, including the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as “Remain in Mexico.”

“We're basically sopping up a pent-up demand that's been kept in Mexico,” Hinojosa-Ojeda said. 

There have been other reasons over the past several years as to why migrants have come to the U.S.-Mexican border to seek asylum, including economic hardships, gang violence and the effects of climate change.

Two hurricanes, Eta and Iota, hit Central America last November, ravaging Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize. Hundreds of thousands were left without homesand displaced.

Individuals in several of those countries also had to deal with political and economic unrest.

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