The number of unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody at the border has risen to over 15,000. Manuel Bojorquez, CBS News correspondent, covers the Mexican side of the border, and Nicole Sganga, Homeland Security and Justice reporter for CBS News, joined CBSN’s Tanya Rivero to learn more about how the Biden administration is reacting.

Video transcript

ASK RIVERO: We start today with the growing number of migrants on the US-Mexico border. For the first time since President Biden took office, we are looking at conditions in a border guard for unaccompanied children. Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar shared these pictures from Donna, Texas. This is because the number of children in our care has grown to more than 15,000. CBS News national correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reports on the situation on the Mexican side of the border.

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: Within minutes of reaching this stretch of the El Paso border on the other side, we saw a man with a child in his arms and a woman hurrying across and into the United States. They seemed to be discovered soon after.

We were told that many families are still trying to get to the other side to report because they think they can apply for asylum. But the Biden administration says most families will be sent back immediately.

It’s what happened to Glenda Mendez from Guatemala.

GLENDA MENDEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: You want people to see you as the person trying what is best for their children.

GLENDA MENDEZ: And.

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: – She and her 14-year-old son Gustavo have been living in a migrant home in Juarez for a month.

How was it all

GUSTAVO MENDEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: Very difficult? Por que? Why?

GUSTAVO MENDEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: Many dangers here in Mexico?

They did not consider sending him alone, although the Biden government’s policy towards unaccompanied minors would mean that he could stay in the US while his case is being processed. Republicans have blamed the president for the crisis.

The story goes on

– – The news comes back that we have a new president. Come in

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas said repeatedly on Sunday that this was not the message.

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: The border is closed.

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: Currently, the policy is that migrants, regardless of whether they cross illegally or via the port of entry, apply for asylum in the US. President Biden said the government was working to change that.

JOE BIDEN: We are in the process of doing this, including making sure that we restore what previously existed. That means they can stay where they are and represent their case from their home country.

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: But a lot of people, like Mendez, say that waiting is impossible.

So it was more the fear of the threats against you and your family that brought you here, not necessarily the politics? [SPEAKING SPANISH]

GLENDA MENDEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

MANUEL BOJORQUEZ: President Biden said he could visit the border but did not say when. Meanwhile, Mexico is increasing its presence along the southern border, where Central and South American migrants are pouring in. Manuel Bojorquez, CBS News, Juarez, Mexico.

ASK RIVERO: To learn more about this, I’d like to include Nicole Sganga, Homeland Security and Justice reporter at CBS News. Hello nicole. How many unaccompanied children are in US custody? Do we have a full picture of the number at this point?

NICOLE SGANGA: Hello Tanya. Thanks for the invitation. There are currently more than 15,000 unaccompanied minors in US custody. These are migrants who, as you know, crossed the border between the United States and Mexico. And let’s break that number down a bit. Almost 4,900 unaccompanied minors are still in customs and border protection custody. Some are currently in a tent hall in South Texas. Others are at other stations along the Mexican border.

And that number has decreased slightly since Saturday, but it’s still very near a record breaking point. And according to government records, unaccompanied children spend an average of 136 hours in CBP custody. That is way beyond the legal limit of 72 hours. And once children and adolescents are released from CBP, they are turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At this point, many of them are open to families and sponsors. As of Saturday, however, HHS also housed around 10,500 unaccompanied children in state-licensed emergency facilities and shelters.

ASK RIVERO: So President Biden has not yet visited the border. But he said yesterday that he would be visiting the southwest border soon. His Minister for Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, visited border installations in El Paso this weekend with a non-partisan delegation of legislators. Here’s what he said about the border in an interview with ABC News yesterday. Let’s listen

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: The message is very clear – don’t come. The border is closed. The border is safe. We evict families. We expel single adults under the supervision of the CDC under Title 42 of the United States Code. Because we are in the middle of a pandemic. And that is a public health imperative.

We encourage children not to come. Now is not the time to come. Do not come.

ASK RIVERO: How does Secretary Mayorkas defend the news from the Biden administration? He cites Title 42, which many people criticized – the Trump administration for introducing it. Is there a bit of a step backwards from the Biden administration?

NICOLE SGANGA: Yes, at first what we heard from DHS Secretary Mayorkas did not come now. What we’re starting to hear now is not to come, period, the line is closed, as you heard right there in this clip. And Secretary Mayorkas really turned out to be that main defender of the immigration policy of the Biden government. It only appeared on four different networks that Sunday, repelling attacks from both the right and the left. And, as you just heard, Minister Mayorkas maintained the government’s claim that the southern border would remain closed, but stressed that it would not deport unaccompanied minors and instead seek shelter for them while they seek asylum here in the US .

In the past, Mayorkas has also refrained from using the word “crisis” to describe the situation on the border. But the urgency here is clear. And if our viewers, Tanya, are not clear, let me just say that while this is not a national security crisis, this is a humanitarian emergency. And Mayorkas stressed that traveling from Central America to the United States is quite tricky.

According to DHS, migrant border crossings are well on their way to reaching their highest level in over two decades. You know the previous record is May 2019. The Trump administration arrested nearly 133,000 migrants that month. Mayorkas also tries to explain here how the United States is working with Central American countries to increase its own capacity for asylum seekers. We learned this morning that a delegation from the White House and the State Department is traveling to Mexico and Guatemala today to “develop an effective and humane plan of action to deal with migration.”

We also learned that the Biden government has now run more than 17,000 radio advertisements in Spanish, Portuguese and six different indigenous languages ​​to prevent US migration from Central America and Brazil. In addition, nearly 600 digital ads were displayed, according to Jen Psaki, White House press secretary. She just briefed reporters – so the administration tried to get that message out loud and clear, but yeah, you know, the urgency behind it has changed, in all honesty, which sounds a little different from some of the promises we make about this then-candidate Biden on the campaign regarding immigration and asylum in that country.

ASK RIVERO: And Nicole, coming back to the legislature’s trip to the border, you know, including those who visited El Paso, urged the Biden administration to allow journalists and reporters at border facilities to document the conditions. What more do we know about the conditions in these facilities as some pictures are only just coming out? And what reasons did the Biden government give journalists to access?

NICOLE SGANGA: As you can see in Congressman Cuellar’s photos, the terms are crowded with one word. And as you have already pointed out, a bipartisan delegation of senators accompanied Secretary Mayorkas to the border on Friday. We heard from Senator Rob Portman who was on the trip. He told our CBN Face the Nation news anchor Margaret Brennan that it is amazing how little his constituents currently know about the situation on the US-Mexico border.

The Customs and Customs and Border Protection facility that lawmakers visited in El Paso, Texas on Friday was 450% of its pandemic-level capacity, if you can believe it. And they didn’t visit any other overcrowded tent complex in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. Had they seen more than 3,900 minors in custody on Friday. That’s – you get it – 1,500% of its pandemic capacity – just so much overcrowding.

And the White House has said there are privacy concerns. There are COVID-19 concerns. They find that they have been open about some of the unaccompanied migrants, particularly migrant children we saw. But it’s one thing to see those numbers, Tanya, and it’s another thing to see the pictures, the actual kids sleeping on mats on the floor in those tent complexes, can’t see sunlight for hours, social distancing and hear their stories. And our correspondents, Meyira Villarreal and Manny Bojorquez, whom you just heard about, spoke to some of the children as young as 10 who fled, you know, from their countries in Central America, who described a trait of what they have perceived a more hopeful message from President Biden, but also that they have been displaced by gang violence, the aftermath of hurricanes and political repression.

ASK RIVERO: All right, Nicole Sganga, thank you very much for that. But please stand by. We’ll get back to you in a moment.