Migrants

Four migrant families that were separated at the border by the Trump administration will be allowed to reunify in the United States this week, the secretary of Homeland Security announced.

Undocumented migrants trekking on foot and packed into vehicles are heading north from the southern border in greater numbers. Some are dying along the way, and Border Patrol agents are frustrated.

After kids are processed at the border, most are reconnected with family members and restart their lives in a new country, in a new language and with a new school. Each year, hundreds of them end up in Houston.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents encountered nearly 172,000 migrants at the border in March, up 71% from February. The increase included a record number of unaccompanied minors.

Any effort to address what's happening on the border has to start with root causes in Central America, says Cecilia Muñoz, who was head of the Domestic Policy Council in the Obama administration.

The Biden administration has been struggling to deal with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The current increase is straining resources and sowing confusion for migrants on both sides of the border.

Two-thirds of Americans approve of how Biden is handling the pandemic, but only a third approves of how he's dealing with immigration. An increasing number also say they will get vaccinated.

As Biden stated, crossings often rise during the early months of the year as the weather improves. But the number of unaccompanied children arriving is considerably higher than in the recent years.

“It’s a humanitarian effort. It’s not a permanent solution,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said this week.

LULAC’s request comes after Gov. Greg Abbott said migrant children are being brought to the U.S. by human traffickers or being used as drug mules.