The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it is expanding eligibility to a recently restarted program that seeks to legally bring children from some South American Nations into the United States.
The Departments of State and Homeland Security announced the expansion of the Central American Minors Program months after the Biden administration restarted the Obama-era immigration plan in March with phase one seeking to reunite children with parents in the United States whose CAM applications were shelved when President Donald Trump terminated the program in 2017.
On Tuesday, the departments announced in a statement that phase two of CAM’s reopening will expand eligibility to allow legal guardians in the United State of children in South American countries to petition for the children in their care to join them across the border.
Jalina Porter, principal deputy spokeswoman at the State Department, told reporters during a press conference that the expansion is part of the Biden administration’s initiatives to provide a safe and legal alternative to entering the country through “dangerous irregular migration.”
“The steps we are taking reflect our values as a nation and represent our continued commitment to ensure that we treat people with dignity and respect, and that we protect the most vulnerable people, especially our children,” she said.
Eligibility will also allow parents and legal guardians who have pending asylum applications or U visa petitions filed before May 15 to apply through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to reunite with their children who are nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras.
“These changes will dramatically expand access to the CAM program,” the department said in a joint statement. “We are firmly committed to welcoming people to the United States with humanity and respect, as well as providing a legal alternative to irregular migration.”
The announcement was made as the United States confronts an increase in border encounters though the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S. border has been dropping.
According to recently released Customs and Border Protection statistics, while 180,034 migrants attempted to enter the United States via the southern land border in May, representing a 1% increase over April, the number of unaccompanied minors dropped from nearly 13,940 in April to 10,765 last month, representing a 23% decrease.
Before the CAM program was scrapped in 2017, nearly 5,000 children had been reunited with their families in the United States.
Porter told reporters Tuesday that since restarting the program in March, the State Department has identified 3,162 cases representing 3,828 people with some 1,100 cases having been reopened.
Asked how many people will become eligible to apply under the program’s expansion, Porter said she doesn’t know.
“Right now we just can’t speculate on how many may ultimately be resettled as refugees or be admitted via parole status,” she said.
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And, who said: “Do not come”?
Also, since we supposedly have MILLIONS OF AMERICAN kids, going without meals (based on the news articles i see), WHY THE HELL ARE we importing kids, WHEN WE CAN’T take care of the ones we already HAVE IN THIS NATION!?
Yep, Joe, bring in the whole world, put them on welfare, destroy the middle class taxpayers who are paying for this and what do we have? We will have the elitists who are rich and the rest of us will be poor. Joe, you are a traitor to the United States of America.
traitor biden needs to be impeached.
HE needs to have a hell of a lot more, than just IMPEACHMENT happen to him.. AND The same needs to happen to EVERYONE ELSE in the damnable DNC!
And this helps the American tax-payers how, again? I must’ve missed that part. The disgusting,
dispicable dem-rats look at this as future
votes, and nothing else. ANYTHING to hold
power.
IT Doesn’t. THAT IS WHY BIDEN and the left, are all for it!
This NIGHTMARE in our white house cares NOTHING about the American people.. They steal our tax dollars to take care of illegal aliens who do NOT belong in this country!!! And now the fool wants to bring in more and more of them … they will be more and more a burden to this country and the American people… This NIGHTMARE of an administrtion is destroying this country and the American people.. he is also racially dividing the country and pitting the races against each other.. WE ALL, who care about this country and it’s future, MUST stand together and get this lunatic out of office before we have NO country left… ANYONE with a brain should not want to see our country torn apart like they are doing and turned into a socialist country… This nightmare administration is kicking the American people in the teeth… GOD HELP US ALL AS OUR COUNTRY IS GOING DOWN…
And this is how revolts begin. Wonder how long before an illegal invader tries to steal, rob, burglarize, invade a personal home/property and becomes a harmed person.
So now biden is trying to recruit voters for 2024. Bet everyone of voting age just before 2024 will be given the same “right” as a legal citizen. Probably was already done so why not again.
Knowing the left, they’d say the HOME OWNER was the criminal in that situation.
Talk about chapping my backside! I’m sponsoring a couple from South America for citizenship, and it is not cheap for them. Come on , man!
“….protect the most vulnerable people, especially our children,”
Who’s children, again? I mean, if I’m committed to ensure them of something I need to know who it is we’re talking about.
Can’t be American children as that would rub the pro-abortion bloc the wrong way.
I can see it now, chartered planes to pickup “parents” in Central America to be flown to various US cities to meet their “children”. Yup.
These days, i certainly wouldn’t be shocked to see biden then say “BUT WE MUST fly in their parents, grand parents, cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces.. GOTTA keep the entire family together…”