U.S. preparing 19,000 beds for migrant children in case of spike in border arrivals, officials say
CBSN
The U.S. is preparing for a potential spike in migrant children crossing the southern border without their parents, and has identified 19,000 beds at shelters and housing sites to prevent these minors from languishing in Border Patrol detention facilities, top Biden administration officials told CBS News.
In interviews, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Cindy Huang, the recently departed director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, said officials are working to avoid repeating what occurred in 2021, when a shortage of shelter beds stranded thousands of migrant children in ill-suited Border Patrol and makeshift housing facilities.
"We have some less than 8,700 children in our care. That's down from a high of over 22,000 about a year ago. We ended up finding shelter for those children over the course of a year. And we believe that it has been provided in a safe and humane way, and we understand that there is a constant fluctuation of the number of children we may see transferred to us," Becerra told CBS News Friday.
