US-Mexico Border: Migrant Surge To Become Largest in 20 Years

U.S. Homeland Security reported on Tuesday that it is "on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border" than they have in the last 20 years. This, since the surge in migration, has steadily increased since April 2020.

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"We are encountering many unaccompanied children at our southwest border every day.  A child who is under the age of 18 and not accompanied by their parent or legal guardian is considered under the law to be an unaccompanied child," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The official explained that the border patrol had found six and seven years old minors unaccompanied as over 80 percent of them have a family member in the U.S. However, this is one of many challenges south of the border, where Central American migrants have sought hope amid the COVID19 pandemic.

Thousands try to escape waves of violence in the aftermath of devastating hurricanes. Once they arrive, they not only face deportations but an asylum-seeking system ripped apart by Trump's administration.

"The prior administration completely dismantled the asylum system.  The system was gutted, facilities were closed, and they cruelly expelled young children into the hands of traffickers.  We have had to rebuild the entire system, including the policies and procedures required to administer the asylum laws that Congress passed long ago," Mayorkas recalled.