WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, March 22, 2021

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1/ Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended Biden’s immigration strategy, saying “the border is closed. We are expelling families, we are expelling single adults and we have made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children.” Nearly 100,000 migrants were detained at the border in February. Mayorkas, in part, blamed Trump for the record number of migrants seeking entry into the country from Mexico and Central America, saying “there was a system in place in both Republican and Democratic administrations that was torn down during the Trump administration, and that is why the challenge is more acute than it ever has been before.” In 2019, the Trump administration cut more than $500 million in aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador in an effort to slow the migration to the U.S. White House officials will travel to Mexico and Guatemala this week for what administration officials described as “ongoing discussions on how to manage an effective and humane plan of action on migration.” (Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / NPR / CNBC)

• ???? Portrait of a President: Inside the Biden administration’s failure to contain the border surge. “The Biden administration is scrambling to control the biggest surge in 20 years, with the nation on pace for as many as 2 million migrants at the southern border this year — the outcome Biden said he wanted to avoid.” (Washington Post)

2/ More than 800 unaccompanied migrant children have been in Border Patrol custody for more than 10 days. The average time in custody is 130 hours, which exceeds the 72-hour legal limit. As of Saturday, Department of Health and Human Services was housing approximately 15,500 unaccompanied migrant minors, including more than 5,000 unaccompanied minors who are being held in a Customs and Border Protection tent holding facility not designed for long-term custody. (CNN / CBS News)

3/ The Biden administration secured hotel rooms to hold around 1,200 migrant families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The $86 million contract is for six months near border areas, including in Arizona and Texas. (Axios)

4/ Department of Homeland Security officials requested airplanes to transport migrants to states near the Canadian border for processing. Customs and Border Protection officials requested the air support from Immigration and Customs Enforcement after 1,000 members of families and unaccompanied minors crossed the Rio Grande on Friday. At the time, there were another 1,000 migrants that officials had been been unable to process. In recent days, CBP has used ICE planes to transport migrant families from the Rio Grande Vall...

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