Border Patrol ‘doing dozens of hospital trips every single day’ with sick migrant children: ‘We need help’

With the migrant caravan now entrenched on the other side of the U.S. border with Mexico, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told CBS News Wednesday morning his agency is inundated with sick children.

This coming after the death of a second migrant child from Guatemala while in U.S. custody, the child dying at a New Mexico hospital shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve after being taken there for a second time to treat an illness.

“We’re doing dozens of hospital trips every single day with children that have fevers or manifest other medical conditions,” McAleenan told CBS News.

“I’ve explained to Congress… that what we’re seeing with these flows, of huge numbers of families with lots of children, young children, as well as unaccompanied minors coming into Border Patrol custody after crossing the border unlawfully, that our stations are not built for that group that’s crossing today,” he said.

“They were built 30 to 40 years ago for single adult males, and we need a different approach,” McAleenan continued. “We need help from Congress. We need to budget for medical care and mental health care for children in our facilities.”

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

This being in addition to the broader problems of  “border security and, of course, solving the issues in our legal framework that are inviting these families and children to make this dangerous journey,” the commissioner said.

As for the deaths of the two children, McAleenan said this was “an extraordinary occurrence,” noting that it’s been more than a decade since the last child died in CBP custody.

Not that this will dissuade the left and its media allies from exploiting the deaths of the two migrant children in an attempt to reinstate the failed “catch and release” policy President Trump is doing away with.

Even as the media downplays the danger illegal immigrant parents put their children in and the liberal embrace of illegal immigration that serves as a siren, calling these poor migrants to our southern border, exposing them to harsh conditions along the way, to include death.

In fact, CBS correspondent Adriana Diaz said she traveled with the migrant caravan and “saw children traveling ten hours a day, at least, walking under the hot sun and sleeping on the streets in really dire, unhealthy conditions,” only to look past the risk these children are being exposed to by their parents to ask the commissioner what his agency is doing to ensure that “these children are as healthy as they can be.”

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

McAleenan announced a series of new procedures following the death’s of the two migrant children and said they are getting help from the Coast Guard in checking on the welfare of children in their care.

In addition to conducting secondary wellness checks on all children in its custody, with a focus on those under age 10, Border Patrol is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on surge options for transportation to Family Residential Centers and supervised release, and considering other custody options to relieve capacity issues, WGNO reported.

CBP is also looking at options for medical assistance with other governmental partners, which could include getting more aid from the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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