Wendy Carolina Mejia from Honduras with her children at a shelter in Tijuana, Mexico (Mauricio Lima/New York Times/File)
The Biden Administration says it will release migrant parents and children within 72 hours of their arrival in the US.
Three Homeland Security officials confirmed the plan on Thursday. The approach, already being implemented along the Texas border, is a marked departure from the lengthy stays in custody under the Obama and Trump Administrations.
Under the new plan, families will be held only for the time required to schedule court dates, conduct Coronavirus tests, and arrange for transfers to shelters. Volunteers and aid workers will then help schedule reunion with relatives already in the country.
Those who test positive for Coronavirus will be isolated at a border facility for 10 days.
No start date has been announced, but the intention is to process and release about 100 families per day from two residential centers in Texas. Currently, there are more than 300 family members at a facility in Dilley, Texas and several dozen at another in Karnes City.
The Administration has been criticized for the possible sheltering of unaccompanied minors in facilities that were used during the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, amid a spike in migrants arriving at the southwestern border.
About 7,700 children are being held in shelters this week, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, taking up almost all available beds in the shelter system. More than 200 have been placed in an emergency temporary facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas.