Mr. President: Time to Pull Out All the Stops on the Border
We need another emergency declaration
By Andrew R. Arthur on April 2, 2019
On March 28, 2019, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen sent a letter to Congress with an "urgent request" for assistance in stemming what she described as a tide of migrants overwhelming the border, and stating that the department is facing a "system-wide meltdown".
According to that letter, there are 1,200 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody, in addition to 6,600 families, bringing the total of children in CBP custody to "approximately 4,700". While she admits that the detention of those UACs is "an unacceptable length of stay in facilities not designed to hold children for extended periods," there is nowhere else for them to go: The systems within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to care for those children in residential shelters are reaching "peak capacity". The border and immigration facilities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "are at (or over) capacity with serious over-crowding" as thousands of migrants rush toward the United States.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Mr-President-Time-Pull-Out-All-Stops-Border