Border Patrol

After 15 years, Claudia Cifuentes reunited with her children. She returned to the U-S from Guatemala through a family reunification process after being deported in 20-08 when her children were still underage.

More than 170,000 migrants were taken into custody at the Southwest border in March, the highest monthly total since at least 2006, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials who have been briefed on the preliminary numbers but are not authorized to speak publicly.

It is true, as Biden states, that numbers often rise during the early months of the year when temperatures begin to warm. But the number of children arriving today without their parents is considerably higher than at the same time in 2019 and 2020. In fact, the number of unaccompanied children being apprehended by the Border Patrol were higher in February than they've been any previous February since 2014, according to data shared with NPR by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

The U.S. government had 4,276 unaccompanied migrant children in custody as of Sunday, according to a Department of Homeland Security document obtained by NPR. The children are spending an average of 117 hours in detention facilities, far longer than the 72 hours allowed by law.

Mohanad Elshieky says Border Patrol agents racially profiled him and held him without cause. The comic, who was granted U.S. asylum in 2018, was on his way home to Portland after a gig in Pullman when the officers confronted him in Spokane.

Several hundred advocates from across the Northwest rallied in Olympia Wednesday demanding protections for immigrants in Washington. According to ICE, agents are forced to conduct arrests in courthouses because state law prohibits local agencies from enforcing immigration law or collaborating with federal authorities.

The report says the administration planned to separate as many as 26,000 children under the "zero tolerance" policy. More than 5,000 children were separated before it was ended by a judge.

Maria del Rayo Mendoza Garcia was arrested in March this year for allegedly committing a misdemeanor assault, according to the lawsuit. She was detained pending arraignment in front of a judge. But before that could happen, Mendoza’s status as an undocumented woman caught the eye of federal immigration authorities.

Administration officials credit a policy of returning asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico and an end to a policy referred to by critics as "catch and release."

"Although the new federal regulation allows us to apply that all 2,000 miles along the Southwest border, we're not going to do that," Mark Morgan told NPR.