Biden to end Trump-era agreement between ICE and agency housing migrant children
12 March 2021
The Biden administration will prevent the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from sharing any information about families who accept migrant children with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to administration officials.
Why it matters: By terminating a 2018 legal agreement between HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, the Biden administration hopes to encourage more sponsors to work with the government to accept unaccompanied minors who are apprehended at the border.
- Moving those children out of HHS shelters and into sponsors' homes helps free up space, which is needed to process the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
- HHS has some 8,500 minors in custody, with an additional 3,500 still being held at border patrol stations, according to the Washington Post.
- To alleviate strain on HHS shelters, CBP has eased COVID-19 protocols that were limiting the number of minors in a given facility, allowing them to fill up to full capacity.
The big picture: While most migrants are being turned away at the border to contain the spread of COVID-19, the Biden administration is allowing unaccompanied minors to enter the country.
How it works: Unaccompanied minors are supposed to be processed by CBP within 72 hours to HHS, which then works with ORR to find homes for the migrants with sponsors, giving preference to relatives of the unaccompanied minor.
- Sponsors need to be vetted before they can accept the minors, including an interview process.
- The average staying time for unaccompanied minors in HHS custody is now 37 days, according to an administration official.
Between the lines: In an effort to crack down on illegal immigration, the Trump administration formalized an agreement between HHS and DHS, that required them to share information about families who were willing to host the unaccompanied minors.
- But activists criticized the agreement, arguing that it discouraged sponsors from coming forward to accept an unaccompanied minor.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly 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.