US facing biggest surge of migrants in 20 years

The United States is facing the biggest surge of migrants at its southwestern border in 20 years, the homeland security secretary said on Tuesday as the Biden administration races to handle an influx of children trying to cross the US-Mexico border alone. 

The number of attempted border crossings by people from Central America and Mexico has steadily increased since April 2020, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

Poverty, violence and corruption in the Mexico and the Northern Triangle - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador - have led people to seek a better life in the United States for years, and there have been surges in the past.

US border agents conducted 100,441 apprehensions or expulsions of migrants at the border with Mexico in February, the US Customs and Border Protection said last week, the highest monthly total since a border crisis of 2019.

Single adults make up the majority of people who are being expelled, Mayorkas said. Children traveling alone, some as young as six years old, are not being turned back.

Nearly 4,300 unaccompanied children were being held by Border Patrol officials as of Sunday, according to an agency official who requested anonymity.

Republicans in Congress say the Biden administration sparked the border surge by promising to unwind some of former President Donald Trump's hardline policies against illegal immigration.