Rise in Migrant Children Tests Biden Border Strategy

...On Monday, the government plans to reopen an emergency shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas—a converted encampment that once hosted oil-field workers—to house 700 additional children. That facility, which opened in 2019 to manage the surge of children, and other emergency shelters had come under criticism from Democrats, in part because they didn’t follow standards governing care at permanent government shelters. Unaccompanied children enjoy unique protections under immigration law that forbid the government from quickly deporting them. They are required to be sent to HHS shelters, where the government cares for them until they can find a suitable sponsor, typically a family member or family friend living in the U.S. The risk, when HHS shelters get full, is that children get backed up in border-patrol stations, where they are housed in stark cells—with just a bench and a toilet—that are designed to hold single adults for a few hours rather than children for days. As of Friday, more than 700 children were in Border Patrol custody, up from 150 on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the numbers...Republicans in Congress criticized the Biden administration for reversing several of the Trump administration’s signature border initiatives, saying the rollbacks were contributing to the increased numbers and were creating a situation that posed a health risk to border-patrol agents and border communities. “We are particularly concerned that the Biden administration’s actions could soon lead to a health crisis at the border and surrounding communities, causing widespread Covid-19 infections and fatalities,” Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a Friday letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Government shelters began filling up in November, after a federal court ordered the Trump administration to stop sending the children alone on planes back to their home countries. The Biden administration has opted to continue housing the children and allowing them to apply for asylum, despite an appeals court ruling overturning the lower court’s November decision...The administration is weighing opening a second emergency shelter in Florida called Biscayne, the facility formerly known as Homestead that came under criticism from immigrant advocates for poor treatment of children, people familiar with the matter said. The shelter likely couldn’t be up and running before April though, they said. Advocates who opposed the Trump administration’s use of the emergency shelters now acknowledge they might be a necessity for the short term...The administration is also considering easing social-distancing requirements to use more of the beds it already operates in existing facilities. Government officials and others noted that children are quarantined for two weeks in shelters near the border before being sent on to other shelters around the country, and they face a far greater public-health risk remaining in border-patrol stations. Another idea under consideration would broaden the definition of a family so that children traveling with an adult family member who isn’t a parent could be released together into the U.S., rather than breaking up the groups and taking the children into government custody...WSJ