Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Thursday that people caught illegally crossing the U.S. border are priorities for deportation, even as thousands of children are doing so to flee poverty and violence in Central America.
“Those apprehended at our border are priorities for removal,” Johnson told reporters at a Washington news conference “They are priorities for enforcement of our immigration laws, regardless of age.”
Johnson also announced several initiatives the Obama administration is pursuing to halt the influx of migrant children:
• The government is searching for additional space to process and shelter the children, who are mostly coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The government is already reserving space at three military bases to care for them.
• The U.S. Coast Guard is loaning aircraft to transport the children to U.S. shelters. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is leasing two additional charter planes to help.
• The Red Cross is providing blankets and “hygiene kits” for the children.
• Johnson is discussing the crisis with ambassadors from the Central American countries and Mexico, specifically regarding their “shared border security interests and faster repatriation.” He plans to continue the talks in Guatemala during a visit there next month.
• The government has “surged” federal law enforcement officers to combat human smuggling on the border.
“As I testified to Congress yesterday, this is a problem of humanitarian proportions in the Rio Grande Valley sector,” Johnson said.
The government doesn’t keep state-by-state statistics, so it is unknown precisely how many of these children are ending up in Georgia. But local immigration attorneys say they have noticed a substantial increase here since last year.
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