Despite making many remarks criticizing immigrant detention facilities throughout his campaign, the Biden administration opened its first facility for children after the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border reached a high in January. The facility is very similar to Trump’s facility that was open for one month in 2019 and will hold up to 700 children.
Experts warned for several months that this could happen as a result of Biden’s relaxed immigration policies.
The Washington Post reported, “Government officials say the camp is needed because facilities for migrant children have had to cut capacity by nearly half because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has been inching up, with January reporting the highest total, more than 5,700 apprehensions, for that month in recent years.”
Although Biden shed a negative light on the facilities when running against former President Donald Trump, a spokesperson for Biden is now saying that the facilities were portrayed in a bad light during the Trump administration and that the children received good care under Trump.
The Biden administration currently has around 7,000 children in custody across several similar facilities.
Immigration lawyer Linda Brandmiller said, “It’s unnecessary, it’s costly, and it goes absolutely against everything Biden promised he was going to do. It’s a step backward, is what it is. It’s a huge step backward.”
Conservatives across Twitter criticized the mainstream media’s coverage of the story, pointing out that during the Trump administration the same facilities were deemed as ‘cages’ for children.