US-Mexico border could face biggest migrant surge in two decades: Homeland Dept

The United States is facing the biggest surge of migrants at its southwestern border in two decades, the Department of Homeland Security warned on March 16. While the border officials are blatantly turning away adults, children as young as six years old are being allowed to stay back on the American land, the department added. This has indirectly fuelled the influx of young children from Mexico, who reportedly travel hundreds of kilometres without adult supervision to live their ‘American dream'.

In a statement, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed that the number of attempted border crossings by people from Mexico and neighbouring countries has steadily increased over the last year. But a majority of single adults and families are being sent back. As per the White House’s Customs and Border Protection, border agents carried out 100,441 apprehensions or expulsions of migrants at the border with Mexico in February alone. 

“We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.  We are expelling most single adults and families.  We are not expelling unaccompanied children.  We are securing our border, executing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) public health authority to safeguard the American public and the migrants themselves, and protecting the children,” the department said. 

'Fleeing poverty, disease and violence 

Stating the reason behind the spike in migration, the department stressed that poverty and violence combined with the COVID-19 pandemic have propelled people to leave their homes and try to make a better future in the US.   

“Poverty, high levels of violence, and corruption in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries have propelled migration to our southwest border for years.  The adverse conditions have continued to deteriorate.  Two damaging hurricanes that hit Honduras and swept through the region made the living conditions there even worse, causing more children and families to flee. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation more complicated,” the department said. 

Every year, thousands of people from Mexico try to enter the US. According to official records, the US border patrol officials recorded over 78,000 migrants attempting to cross the country’s southern border in January. In the same month, officials in Texas released hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, who were detained illegally crossing the border, amid fears of overcrowding the Border Patrol facilities amidst a pandemic.

(Image credit: Associated Press)