President Joe Biden has provided $86 million to house migrants at the US-Mexican border. The move comes after images of detention camps shocked the country and the international community and resulted in accusations that Biden was continuing the migration policies of former president Donald Trump. Trump was severely criticised for housing migrants in appalling conditions and separating children from their parents in the camps. The cramped conditions are of a particular worry due to the ongoing pandemic which has claimed over 500,000 American lives.
The $86 million will be used to put migrants in hotel rooms before they can be processed at a migration court. It is believed that as many as 1,200 families may be stationed in the hotel rooms at any one time, and that they will be able to stay in the hotels for as long as 6 months.
An announcement from the President's office said that the new administration was overhauling the whole of the migration system. The statement said that the administration would be taking a:
"Top-to-bottom review of recent regulations, policies, and guidance that have set up barriers to our legal immigration system."
It is believed that as many as 2 million people illegally cross the US-Mexican border each year, with most coming from Mexico itself, as well as other central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
There are currently 2,000 unaccompanied children held by US authorities, who either crossed the border themselves or who have been split up from their parents who have been deported. Anyone born on American soil is entitled to citizenship.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has blamed the ongoing situation of unaccompanied children being detained on the new President, saying:
"It's more than a crisis, this is a human heartbreak. The sad part about all this, didn't have to happen. This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration. There's no other way to claim it than a Biden border crisis."
[h/t: I heart Intelligence]
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