Few signs of WH plans to contain border surge

As the Biden administration races to find shelter for a fast-growing migration surge along the Mexico border, they are handling the influx primarily as a capacity challenge. The measures they have taken are aimed accommodating the increase, not to contain it or change the upward trend.

The administration has quickly turned detention centers into rapid-processing hubs for families with young children, relaxed shelter capacity rules aimed at lessening the spread of the coronavirus, deployed hundreds of backup border agents to the busiest crossings and tried to mobilize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with coronavirus testing and quarantining those who test positive. With bed space filling quickly, officials have drafted plans to put families in hotels in Texas and Arizona…

Theresa Cardinal Brown, an immigration analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said the administration is treating the strain as a logistical and operational problem, “but whether they see it as a political problem is a different question.”