House Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks to the media during a briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 11, 2021.
Joshua Roberts | Reuters
House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Said Sunday the influx of unaccompanied children on the US-Mexico border was a “humanitarian crisis” and the result of former President Donald Trump’s policies.
Pelosi’s remarks came a day after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would begin housing and transferring children arriving at the southern border.
“The Biden administration is trying to fix the broken system that was left to them by the Trump administration,” Pelosi told reporters on Sunday. “The Biden government will have a system based on doing the best possible job and understanding that this is a humanitarian crisis.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has stopped calling the situation on the border a crisis.
On his first day in office, Biden put an end to Trump’s declaration of an “emergency” on the southern border that the former president had used as a legal mechanism to divert additional funds towards building a wall.
During a press conference at the White House earlier this month, Mayorka told reporters that he did not believe the situation at the border was a crisis.
“The answer is no,” said the DHS secretary. “I think there is a challenge at the border that we manage and we have put our resources into it.”
Biden campaigned for a sweeping reversal of Trump’s tough immigration policies, but a growing number of children in customs and border protection has challenged the burgeoning administration.
More than 3,700 children have been in CBP detention since last week, a record number, with around 450 arrested daily, according to CNN. Many of these children are being held in facilities similar to prisons, according to the outlet.
The Trump administration has been screened for its treatment of children trying to enter the US via Mexico.
The Republicans have tried to portray the Democrats as low immigration. On Monday, House minority chairman Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Is due to travel to the southern border with a delegation of Republicans, Axios reported.
McCarthy wrote a letter to Biden on March 5 saying he felt “compelled to express great concern about the way your administration is approaching this crisis,” adding that he “had the hope that we can work together to solve them “.
On the previous Sunday, Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week” that the increase in unaccompanied children arriving at the border was “a humanitarian challenge for all of us”.
“What the government has inherited is a broken system on the border and they are working to correct that in the interests of the children,” Pelosi said.
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