REPORT: 13K Unaccompanied Minors in Border Patrol Custody, Many for 5 Days

CBS News reports U.S. Border Patrol officials are holding more than 13,000 unaccompanied migrant children in custody along the Rio Grande. Many are being held for at least five days — well beyond the 72-hour legal limit.

CBS News Correspondent Mirey Villarreal reported from the Texas-Mexico border that officials are holding more than 13,000 unaccompanied alien children in Border Patrol facilities designed for adults. Many of the children are being held for at least five days. Courts previously imposed a limit of 72 hours on how long unaccompanied children could be held without being released to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Health and Human Services.

BREAKING: CBS News has learned that there are now over 13,000 unaccompanied minors in U.S. custody.@CBSMireya is on the border tonight for the @CBSEveningNews.

— Norah O’Donnell (@NorahODonnell) March 16, 2021

Breitbart’s Randy Clark first reported on the Biden Administration illegally holding these minors in jail cells built to hold adults beyond the 72-hour limit. “Despite the opening of a new facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, Border Patrol facilities continue to experience overcrowding not seen since the 2019 migrant crisis,” Clark wrote.

While the Biden Administration calls the migrant surge a “challenging situation,” and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the situation is “under control,” local law enforcement officials in the Rio Grande Valley are calling it a “full-blown crisis,” Villarreal reported.

More migrants are attempting to cross into the U.S. now than in the past 20 years, @DHSgov Sec. Mayorkas said while insisting that the situation is under control.

A surge of unaccompanied migrant children is presenting the biggest challenge.@cbsmireya reports from the border pic.twitter.com/3xA8y28YDq

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) March 16, 2021

In her report, Villarreal talked to a 10-year-old Honduran boy who made the journey to the Texas border without any family and was walking alone when she found him.

The situation is something President Joe Biden has seen before. In June 2014, during the Obama/Biden administration, Breitbart Texas Managing Editor Brandon Darby published leaked photos of migrant children being packed into filthy jail cells. The revelation of the children being held in deplorable conditions shocked the world and shifted the discussion of illegal immigration in the United States.

During the Trump administration in April 2018, Breitbart Texas again reported the increasing numbers of unaccompanied children crossing the border.

With only 4,171 unaccompanied minors crossing the entire southwest border with Mexico that month, DHS Press Secretary Tyler Q. Houlton said, “The crisis at our Southwest border is real. The number of illegal border crossings during the month of March shows an urgent need to address the ongoing situation at the border.”

In February 2021, Border Patrol agents apprehended 18,945 unaccompanied minors (7,056 in Texas sectors alone) and the Biden Administration scrambles to catch up with the situation they say is “under control.”

DHS Secretary Mayorkas appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday morning, Breitbart News reported. The secretary refused, once again, to call the situation a “crisis.” Rather he said the department faces a “difficult situation.”