Immigration officials struggle with 'huge backups to process folks into the country,' Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said.
As Central American families seeking asylum in the U.S. continued to arrive at the southern border, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen sounded the alarm that immigration officials had run"out of space" to accommodate them.
"Just to give them that initial medical triage, to do the intake we have a huge backup, so we're out of space even there," Nielsen said. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused asylum seekers of presenting as"fraudulent" families at the border to help their chances of being granted asylum in the U.S.
"Once they get in, because, as you know, we can only hold families for 20 days, they send the child back and bring the child back with another family–another fake family, another adult," Nielsen said. "I mean the security aspects of this, the humanitarian aspects of this, have got to be addressed," she said.
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