Is Biden doing any better for migrant children?
On Wednesday, March 17 at 19:30 GMT:
The US is scrambling to deal with a growing number of migrant children arriving at the US-Mexico border. On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security ordered the disaster agency FEMA to help shelter and transport child migrant arrivals. The recent surge has forced overwhelmed facilities to loosen pandemic restrictions on housing and has led to the reopening of a migrant children programme previously shut down by former president Donald Trump.
The situation at the border is already dire as US President Joe Biden faces serious challenges in processing a backlog of asylum claims. Reversing Trump-era policies, Biden has promised a more humane immigration system and has begun processing the cases of tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexican border towns.
In this episode of The Stream, we’ll look at how the US is handling the migrant crisis at its southern border. Join the conversation.
On this episode of The Stream, we speak with:
Camila Alvarez, @Carecen_LA
Legal director, Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles (CARECEN)
Kennji Kizuka, @KennjiKizuka
Senior researcher & policy analyst for refugee protection, Human Rights First
Rachel Schmidtke, @r_schmidtke
Latin America advocate, Refugees International