Border officials removed more than 13,000 immigrant children without friends

The Department of Homeland Security has deported unaccompanied immigrant children more than 13,000 times from the U.S. border since March, when the Trump administration gave the agency unprecedented powers to close border access to the coronavirus pandemic, according to an internal document obtained by BuzzFeed. News.

The numbers represent a major jump in child deportations since the CDC issued an order allowing border officials to deport almost all immigrants passing through Mexico. coronavirus it was expanding rapidly in the world in March.

“The number of children being sent back without any process is enormous, which can lead to a serious or fatal risk,” said ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt, who is working to stop the order.

Earlier, helpless children were sent to government shelters when they tried to pursue asylum cases. But the Trump administration has argued that the policy is necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. and has been a key tool for border agents.

Deportations are different than deportations, which means that an immigrant has undergone an immigration process and has not been legally allowed to stay in the U.S. Critics say the government is using public health orders as an excuse to violate federal laws governing the processing of unaccompanied minors at the border.

In September, a border official testified in federal court that the CDC had ordered the return of about 8,800 children. The internal DHS document says there have been more than 13,000 “encounters” since March under the new policy on unaccompanied immigrant children.

A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not confirm the statistics due to ongoing litigation, but said it meant expelling “meetings.”

“Once found, they would be expelled,” the spokesman said, noting that children who return to the border several times in the statistic could also be included.

Prior to the pandemic, borderless agents received by Border Patrol agents would be sent to the Refugee Relocation Office, where they would stay in shelters, officially awaiting asylum, and waiting to reunite with U.S. relatives.

The ORR referral process was created by the Traffic Victim Protection Recovery Act, signed in 2008 by then-President George W. Bush. Under the law, CBP officials typically have to send children to the U.S. refugee agency within 72 hours.

But those mentions went down after the CDC order. Instead, children who are not at the border immediately return to Mexico or are detained at CBP facilities until a flight leaves the country.

In late June, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by President Donald Trump, he blocked the deportation Of a 16-year-old Honduran boy under CDC arrest. Although the ruling did not completely invalidate the policy, it was seen as a blow to the administration. Since then, the government has said it no longer wants to use the CDC order to get the boy out of the country.

In September, a federal judge also ordered the Trump administration stop arrest immigrant children in hotels before being quickly sent to their countries under the border pandemic policy.