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This is VOA news. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton. Thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the Mexican border into the United States have quickly reignited the contentious immigration debate in Washington. Republicans and Democrats are at odds over who is to blame for what both parties describe as a crisis. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led a group of Republican lawmakers to the border Monday to condemn policies of Democratic President Joe Biden that McCarthy said have opened the border to unfettered illegal migration.
McCarthy told reporters at the border in El Paso, Texas, quote, "The security of our nation and our border is first and foremost the responsibility of our president." He said, "This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration." Upon taking office in January, Biden stopped construction of the border wall championed by former President Donald Trump and has advanced what he says are more humanitarian immigration policies. The Biden administration has stopped short of calling the influx of migrants a crisis, instead calling it a challenge. The migrants included nearly 30,000 unaccompanied children in February alone. The Biden administration has been hard-pressed to keep thousands of impoverished Guatemalan, Honduran and Salvadoran migrants from traveling on a dangerous trek through Mexico to what they believe will be a safer, more prosperous life in the United States. The children are being kept in makeshift facilities at the border. They're already at 94 percent capacity before they can be sent to relatives already living in the United States or to vetted families willing to take care of or adopt them. On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters "the Biden administration is trying to fix the broken system that was left to them by the Trump administration." This is VOA news.
