Updated at 4:45 p.m. ET
Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan says the U.S. has apprehended more than 800,000 migrants attempting to enter the country since last October, calling the numbers staggering and unprecedented, and that the influx has “challenged and overwhelmed every aspect of our border and immigration enforcement system.”
Still, McAleenan said DHS “made significant strides in its effort to secure the border and help and protect migrants in our custody.”
McAleenan testified on Capitol Hill Thursday before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, as Democrats step up oversight of an immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.
He told the panel that fewer than 1,000 children have been separated from their families out of some 450,000 family units that have attempted to cross the border in the current fiscal year.
McAleenan said a recently passed package of humanitarian aid has allowed CBP to construct four temporary tentlike shelters to house those placed in detention at the border, alleviating the overcrowding at some CBP facilities. That same money, he testified, resulted in a reduction in the “in-custody population of children from a high of 2,700 to about 350 at the end of the day yesterday.”
He credited Trump administration policies for leading to a 28% reduction in border crossings last month.
Democrats pushed back against what oversight committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., called McAleenan’s attempts to “sugarcoat” conditions for detained migrants.