A leaked presidential briefing document reported on by NBC News revealed that 20 percent of unaccompanied migrant children who illegally crossed the border are testing positive for COVID-19 after being released into communities by Border Patrol. The report covers the last two to three weeks of data prepared for President Joe Biden, NBC says.
The Biden Administration is flying migrants from packed Border Patrol facilities in the Rio Grande Valley Sector to El Paso, according to U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar (D-TX). Two flights carrying 270 migrants in total are expected to make the journey on Monday, a local charity group said.
Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a Honduran migrant wanted in Galveston, Texas, for drug possession charges. The man had just illegally crossed from Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials announced that the apprehension of migrants who illegally cross the border between ports of entry fell in August by 30 percent. This number is down by 62 percent from the May peak of 132,870, but up by 35 percent over August 2018’s 37,524.
Apprehensions of mostly Central American families who illegally cross the border between ports of entry are up more than 450 percent this year, despite recent decreases in June and July.
Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump were both faced with the issue of unaccompanied minors and family units following the passage of a law by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2008. The law, intended to curb human smuggling, became a magnet for families and children to the U.S. border.
