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More Than 700 Unaccompanied Migrant Children Being Held at U.S. Border, Says Report

President Joe Biden has been under heavy fire on the issue of child migrants this week, and new figures reveal the growing problem.

More than 700 unaccompanied migrant children were being held at Border Patrol facilities at the end of last week, according to a government document obtained by Axios. President Joe Biden has been under heavy fire on the issue of child migrants this week—on Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) criticized his administration for reopening a Trump-era detention facility in Texas to house immigrant teenagers. Now Axios has published details of an internal Customs and Border Protection document that reveals that more than 700 kids are waiting in Border Patrol custody to be transferred to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 200 of them had been held in Border Patrol stations for more than 48 hours, and nine of them for over 72 hours—the agreed-upon limit. Press secretary Jen Psaki blamed some of the delays on the extreme weather that shut down Texas last week, and said that rising numbers of children have been arriving in the U.S. unaccompanied.