Under President Biden, nearly seven times as many unaccompanied minors are being detained by either Customs and Border Patrol or Health and Human Services as compared to the Trump administration.
A March 10th report from The Washington Post explains how “more than 8,500 migrant teens and children who crossed the border without their parents are being housed in Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)” and “nearly 3,500 more are stuck at Border Patrol stations waiting for beds in those shelters to open up.”
These numbers constitute “the highest figure ever, according to internal data reviewed by The Washington Post.”
In contrast, under the Trump administration, the largest number of unaccompanied minors being detained was roughly 2,600:
Held in grim steel-and-concrete cells built for adults, these young people are spending an average of 107 hours awaiting transfer to an HHS-run shelter, well over the 72-hour legal limit, the data shows. The largest number of unaccompanied minors held this way during the Trump administration was about 2,600 in June 2019, according to congressional testimony and two former Customs and Border Protection officials who were involved in handling that crisis.
That’s nearly five times as many unaccompanied children being held illegally under President Biden as compared to President Trump.
