Unaccompanied kids total 63,000: US govt
Nearly 63,000 unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, have crossed the border into the United States in the current fiscal year, the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection says.
From October, when the fiscal year started, through July, the US Border Patrol arrested 62,998 unaccompanied children and adolescents under 17 years. The number is double that of the same period the year earlier, when the Border Patrol arrested 31,491 unaccompanied minors.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said while the overall number was high, "we have seen a downward trend over the last four to six weeks".
The number of unaccompanied children from Honduras - 17,582 - is the highest from any single country. It is followed by Guatemala (15,733), El Salvador (14,591) and Mexico (13,675), the Border Patrol said in a statement.
It also reported a significant increase in families detained at the border. That number rose to 62,856 families in the fiscal year through July, compared with 11,001 in the same period of fiscal 2013.
The ballooning number of unaccompanied children detained at the US border with Mexico has been a worry in Washington for several weeks.
One of the challenges is a 2008 law that prevents the immediate deportation of unaccompanied children from countries that do not border the US.
Another challenge is the slow legal process. Children from Central American countries crossing the border alone are processed by an immigration tribunal, which decides whether or not they should be deported to their countries of origin.
The process can last for months or even years.
