Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Number Of Detained Children At Border In Last Year Surpasses Any Previous Record
The New York Times: U.S. Detains Record Number Of Child Migrants, Surpassing Crisis Under Obama
The United States has detained more children trying to cross the nation’s southwest border on their own over the last year than during any other period on record, surpassing the surge of unaccompanied minors that set off a crisis during the Obama administration, according to new figures released Tuesday. American immigration authorities apprehended 76,020 minors, most of them from Central America, traveling without their parents in the fiscal year that ended in September — 52 percent more than during the last fiscal year, according to United States Customs and Border Protection. (Villegas, 10/29)
Politico: CBP: Border Arrests Doubled In 2019
The 2019 numbers represent the most people arrested at the border since 2007, but remain below levels of the late-1980s through mid-2000s, when arrest figures routinely topped 1 million. Border arrests are used as a rough metric for the overall number of illegal border crossings. “These are numbers that no immigration system in the world can handle, not even in this country,” acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan told reporters at the border in El Paso, Texas. (Kullgren, 10/29)
Meanwhile, in other news —
The Wall Street Journal: White House Weighs Ways To Tap Cuccinelli As Acting DHS Secretary
The White House is weighing legal options that could allow President Trump to appoint Ken Cuccinelli as the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter. The White House personnel chief told Mr. Trump in a meeting last week that his top choices for the job—Mr. Cuccinelli, acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection—are both ineligible under a federal statute governing vacancies, according to an opinion by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. (Hackman and Restuccia, 10/30)
