By Nina Žoher (Nova24tv)
The agony of unaccompanied children at the Mexican border in the US continues, at the expense of the unwise policy of Biden administration. Photographs taken at the Texas Detention Center have come to light, showing for the first time since Biden took office the conditions in which poor unaccompanied children are being held. Despite the fact that we are in the middle of an epidemic, children are crowded next to each other in improvised rooms. They lie on thin mattresses on the floor and are covered with foil blankets.
According to the British BBC, as many as a thousand people are accommodated in the mentioned tent settlement. Biden’s critics are critical of encouraging illegal migration. His administration changed the policy of rejecting unaccompanied children at the border, and instead decided to enumerate and place them with sponsored families in the United States.
After the aforementioned pictures, showing that children by no means have a suitable distance between one another, were made public by Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, the Biden administration was forced to respond. On Monday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the US government is working to secure accommodation for the newcomers in the next few days and weeks.
The photos, which were supposed to be taken over the weekend, also raised concerns about the apparent lack of social distance during the new coronavirus pandemic. The American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), like the profession elsewhere in the world, recommends that people stay at a distance of 2 meters from each other to prevent the spread of viral infections. Activists familiar with the situation at the centre said, among other things, that the residents also did not have adequate access to soap or food.
Journalists are not allowed access
Ever since Joe Biden took over the presidency, journalists have not been allowed to enter the accommodation centres, although they reported from the White House that they will provide access. Lawyers representing the children, and legislators who toured the premises described the situation as cramped. The number of unaccompanied minors at the border has risen sharply in recent months. The US government has said it wants to work with Mexico and Guatemala to address the root causes of the problem, the worst of which are poverty and violence ruling in Central America.
Former US President Donald Trump has been seen as the target of criticism at the expense of the situation prevailing in border accommodation for unaccompanied children. He inherited the situation from his predecessor Barack Obama, but he had to face a number of media attacks, whereas the media are again lenient towards Biden.