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Border crisis: Migrant children being separated from families, housed in facilities 'akin to jails'
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Border crisis: Migrant children being separated from families, housed in facilities 'akin to jails'

'The trauma of the separation is very similar'

New details are coming to light about President Joe Biden's response to the growing migrant crisis at the border, particularly in how the administration is handling the surge of unaccompanied minors.

According to new reports, Biden's administration is housing children in facilities "akin to jails" and even separating families.

What are the details?

According to the New York Times, thousands of migrant children have been placed in detention facilities that are comparable to jails, and many are being held there for more time that permitted by law.

From the Times:

The number of unaccompanied migrant children detained along the southern border has tripled in the last two weeks to more than 3,250, filling facilities akin to jails as the Biden administration struggles to find room for them in shelters, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. More than 1,360 of the children have been detained beyond the 72 hours permitted by law before a child must be transferred to a shelter, according to one of the documents, dated March 8. ...

Under the law, the federal government is required to move unaccompanied children within three days from the border facilities to shelters managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, where they are held until they are placed with a sponsor. Homeland Security officials have often pointed to delays by Health and Human Services in picking up the children as a reason for the prolonged detention.

Meanwhile, USA Today reported that Biden's administration is separating children from their family members "for weeks on end."

And despite the coronavirus concerns, the Biden administration is filling migrant detention centers to 100% capacity.

Government documents show the Department of Homeland Security expects a record 117,000 unaccompanied minors to come to the U.S. this year alone, Axios reported.

Any different from Trump?

Claims of "kids in cages" and news of child separation dominated news headlines and Democratic rhetoric in 2018 as then-President Donald Trump faced his own migrant crisis.

Now, however, the media is working overtime to spin Biden's current policies as different from Trump's, which stemmed from his "zero tolerance" directive on illegal immigration.

The Associated Press reported last month, "Claim of 'kids in cages' hypocrisy is missing context."

USA Today even attempted to draw distinctions between child separation under Biden and child separation under Trump:

The procedure, which is different from the highly controversial Trump administration policy of separating immigrant parents from their children, is designed to protect minors from human traffickers and grant them legal protections.

But immigration advocates admit the reality for child migrants is "very similar."

"It really does look and feel in many ways like a parent-child separation," Lisa Koop, associate director of legal services at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told USA Today. "The trauma of the separation is very similar."

Shockingly, as backlash grows, the Biden administration has considered changing the language they use to refer to child migrant detention centers.

According to the Washington Examiner, the administration is considering calling the detention centers "reception centers" because, as the Examiner reported, "the name sounds less harsh."

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