The Biden administration on Wednesday restarted a program to allow children in Central America to apply for protection remotely, an effort to deter migration north as President Biden faces increasing pressure over his treatment of young immigrants along the border with Mexico.
The Obama-era program provides Central American children an alternative path to unite with parents already in the United States without first making the dangerous journey north. Mr. Biden said during his campaign that restoring the program, as well as investing $4 billion in the region, were part of a plan to address the poverty and corruption that have for years pushed vulnerable families to seek sanctuary in the United States.
Roberta S. Jacobson, one of Mr. Biden’s top advisers overseeing border issues, said the administration would begin by processing the nearly 3,000 children in the region who were approved to travel to the United States when former President Donald J. Trump abruptly terminated the program in 2017. The United States will then begin accepting new applications for the program.
“It’s really important people not make the dangerous journey in the first place, that we provide them with alternatives to make that journey because it’s not safe,” said Ms. Jacobson, a special assistant to Mr. Biden.
But Mr. Biden’s long-term strategy to bolster Central American economies and deter illegal migration is running up against the immediate challenge of how to process thousands of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border — a situation that has drawn swift backlash from Republicans and Democrats.
The number of migrant children in custody at border detention facilities tripled in the past two weeks to more than 3,250, according to federal immigration agency documents obtained by The New York Times on Monday. Many of those children were held longer than the three days allowed by law, a mandate previous administrations have struggled to follow.
Troy Miller, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, announced on Wednesday that apprehensions at the border, including at entry points, increased to roughly 100,441 in the month of February. Border agents had encountered a migrant at the border about 78,000 times in January — more than double the rate at the same time a year ago and higher than in any January in a decade.
Most of those migrants continue to be rapidly turned away under a Trump-era pandemic emergency rule, but Mr. Biden has broken from the previous administration in letting unaccompanied children into the United States.
Mr. Biden was briefed on Wednesday by top administration officials who had visited the border this past weekend, according to Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.
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