Biden establishes new tent city to process surge of illegal immigrants

Facing a new surge of illegal immigration, and particularly children, at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration said Tuesday it’s had to open a new tent facility in Texas to handle the increases. The new Customs and Border Protection facility is going up in Donna, near the southern tip of Texas, where it’s going to be available for use by several Border Patrol stations. Officially known as “soft-sided” facilities, the tents are used to process illegal immigrants. Photos of the new facility show shelves piled high with blankets, suggesting some migrants will be kept overnight. The previous administration had opened a similar tent center in Donna in 2019, but closed it in 2020 as the border numbers plummeted after a number of policy changes cut the incentives for migrants to try their luck. Numbers began to climb at the end of last year, and have soared so far in 2021. One former official said CBP, the border agency within Homeland Security, is now encountering 300 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) a day — one of the fastest rates ever. All told, perhaps 4,500 people a day are trying to jump the border, the official said. CBP blamed factors in Latin America...MORE