The FEMA deployment will support what DHS called a 90-day government-wide effort at the border, where the Biden administration is struggling to care for a record number of teenagers and children arriving without their parents. The minors are arriving at a rate that far exceeds authorities’ ability to house them.
“The federal government is responding to the arrival of record numbers of individuals, including unaccompanied children, at the southwest border,” DHS said in a statement.
Conditions inside U.S. border stations have deteriorated in recent days, according to lawyers who represent migrant children, becoming dangerously overcrowded with nearly 4,000 minors who are jam-packed in holding facilities and jail cells designed for adults.
Another 8,500 teens and children are in Health and Human Services custody awaiting placement with parents or other relatives already living in the United States.
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