‘Crisis’ Update: Children in Border Patrol Custody Drops 84 Percent in a Month, Time in Custody Drops By 105 Hours

Tommy ChristopherApr 30th, 2021, 8:05 am
 

Scott Olson/Getty Images

As news organizations and the Biden administration debate whether to call the situation at the border a “crisis,” the number of unaccompanied minors has dropped 84 percent in one month, and the average time in custody has fallen from 133 hours to 28 hours.

As some news outlets clamor for President Joe Biden and his administration to call the border situation a “crisis” while others instruct their reporters not to do so, the central challenge to the system has changed dramatically, according to CNN:

The number of unaccompanied migrant children held in jail-like conditions by US Customs and Border Protection dropped nearly 84% in the span of a month, according to a White House official, underscoring the significant progress made by the administration after reaching record high custody figures.

As of Wednesday, there were 954 children in CBP facilities, down from a peak of 5,767 on March 28, the official told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the record.

Perhaps more importantly, CNN also reported that “The average time that kids are in CBP custody is now 28 hours, compared to 133 hours on March 28, the official said, a nearly 80% reduction in time spent in Border Patrol detention.”

That new average time in custody is well below the 72-hour legal limit that was being broken through at the height of the problem, which contributed greatly to the bottleneck.

On Thursday, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted a version of this data, which showed an 82 percent reduction as of April 27.

“Down 82%. In a month,” Klain wrote.

Aside from a couple of inadvertent lapses, President Biden and his administration have conspicuously refused to call the unaccompanied minors coming into the country a “crisis.”

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