Leaked photos put face on border crisis

A Biden administration official headed to Mexico on Monday to work with officials there on a plan to manage the growing migration surge. White House envoys also planned to visit Guatemala to seek to address the causes that lead people there to trek through Mexico to the U.S. southern border. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, released photos of a Border Patrol holding facility where more than 1,000 migrants, many of them unaccompanied minors, are living in overcrowded tents and sleeping under foil blankets on floor mats in small groups separated by plastic sheeting.

How is the administration handling the surge? Cuellar said he released the photos because the U.S. government has refused to let reporters examine the migrant holding sites. Some nonprofit lawyers also say Border Patrol has denied them access to detained migrants. The surge at the border appears to have caught the administration off-guard, and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are calling on President Joe Biden to improve conditions for detainees. “We ought to take care of those kids like they’re our own kids,” Cuellar said.

Dig deeper: Read Sophia Lee’s report on a Salvadoran family who traveled to the U.S. southern border with a migrant caravan.