The number of migrant children reaching the US from Mexico has increased ninefold since the beginning of 2021.
According to the UN children’s agency UNICEF says, it is a rise from 380 to around 3,500 children. The numbers have overwhelmed the facilities at Mexico’s reception centres, it adds.
These children are around 30 per cent crowd of the total migrants in the Mexican shelters.
Last week Save the Children also warned that the number of unaccompanied children along the US-Mexico border increased. Further, their journey is becoming more dangerous as they arrive via unsafe routes to avoid immigration controls.
Jorge Vidal Arnaud is the director of Save the Children programmes in Mexico. The situation is becoming critical, said he in a statement of the 16th of April. The shelters set up by civil society or the government in different parts of the country are filling up. Moreover, there is a risk of it growing congested.
The kids are mainly from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico itself. Out of the total numbers, half of them arrived without their parents.
In border towns like Reynosa, migrant families are making stopgap encampments.
UNICEF’s statement
Jean Gough is the UNICEF’s regional director of Latin America and the Caribbean. She said that they are of the living conditions of the migrant children. Moreover, mothers in Mexico could soon deteriorate further.
Many families will attempt sending their children over the border unaccompanied or via people traffickers. It all will be in the hope that they will be reunited by US president Joe Biden’s administration. All they have to do is be inside the country once.
However, the Mexican government has recently sent troops to its southern border to clamp down on migrants in the North.
President Biden’s steps with the migrants
Over 3,400 unaccompanied children are being kept at the Texas processing centre. President Biden’s government has allowed reporters to tour the facility. Following the calls for greater access as the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border remains to increase.
Last week, President Joe Biden turned course hours after signing an order. It was to keep the figure of refugees approved annually to the US at Trump era levels.
Reports say Mr Joe Biden is concerned about letting in more people amid a record inrush at the US-Mexico boundaries.
