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Biden administration calls for more federal volunteers to help with migrant kids

26 March 2021
Dan Ackermann

The Biden administration is calling for volunteers from across the federal government to help care for the growing number of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a memo sent to federal agencies by the Office of Personnel Management, obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: The request underscores just how overwhelmed government resources have become with more than 17,000 migrant minors in its custody, including over 5,000 in border patrol facilities unfit for minors. The number keeps rising.

  • The Department of Homeland Security already has called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and recruited other DHS volunteers to help at the border.

Details: The latest OPM request asks for volunteers to “lend support to this humanitarian effort” of caring for and placing unaccompanied minors in inappropriate housing.

  • Volunteers would temporarily work under the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement for up to 120 days, and volunteers can be deployed to one of several facilities across the southwest border.
  • During the 2019 crisis, the the Trump administration also called for volunteers from other agencies to help Customs and Border Protection.
  • Buzzfeed News first reported the Biden administration's move.

The big picture: HHS has already announced plans to open multiple overflow facilities to hold migrant kids, and is moving to open up to two more sites on military bases which could add over 5,000 beds, as CNN reported.

  • The agency has also expedited the process for releasing some migrant kids to parents or other guardians already in the U.S.
  • Still, the number of children and teens waiting in border patrol facilities unfit for minors continues to grow. As of Thursday, there were more than 5,000 children in border facilities.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.