We're focused on the US Mexico border and a test of whether Joe Biden can match his words with actions.

What do you do with an unaccompanied child that comes to the border?

Do you repeat what Trump did?

Take them from their mothers to move them away, hold them in cells, et cetera.

We're not doing that.

Since Joe Biden became president, tens of thousands of people have arrived at the U.

S border.

Most have been turned back.

But in a change of Donald Trump's policy, unaccompanied Children are now not turned back.

And these pictures are our first sight of where they initially stay.

Children packed into confined areas surrounded by screens, and Republicans are blaming the president.

This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration.

There's no other way to claim it that a Biden border crisis.

They're hoping nobody sees the tragic human cost of their failed policies, to which the Biden administration says this is on Donald Trump.

President Trump dismantled the orderly, humane and efficient way of allowing Children to make their claims under United States law in their home countries, he dismantled the Central American Minors program.

So we are rebuilding those orderly and safe processes as quickly as possible.

Now Joe Biden has put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of this, and she acknowledges, there's a lot of work to be done.

We've been in office less than 100 days.

We're addressing it.

We're dealing with it, but it's gonna take some time.

And are we frustrated?

Are you frustrated?

Yes, we are.

Frustration for Kamala Harris.

Frustration for the Republicans.

Frustration all around.

But where does responsibility lie for his criticism of Donald Trump as president, Biden actually made the situation worse.

And does he need to acknowledge this is a problem with no obvious solution?

Well, let's work through it, starting with the numbers.

Here's the US Mexico border.

It's more than 3000 kilometers long.

It's the most frequently crossed international border in the world.

This graphic shows the number of encounters with U.

S.

Border Patrol since 2017.

You'll see a peak in 2019, then a sharp fall, then arise again in 2020.

So before Joe Biden took office and we should note for this time of year, March 2021 is higher than the three previous years.

Also, look at this.

The number of unaccompanied Children is rising now that started under President Trump.

But it's increased more rapidly under President Biden.

And we know where the migrants are coming from, some from Mexico, others from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

And the question at the heart of their stories and of this issue for the White House is why they're heading to the U.

S.

This is one reason these pictures show the aftermath of Hurricane IATA in November last year, many people lost their homes.

Then there's the pandemic.

It's disrupted everything it's created, reasons to leave and reasons to delay journeys both in part, explain the current surge on the border, adding drug cartels, violence, poverty and political repression.

All of these reasons can lead people to conclude that the US is their best.

Perhaps their only hope.

BBC Sophie Long spoke to some people heading to the border.

These boys have fled violence and poverty.

They don't know who President Biden is or Milken noses how hard it was to say goodbye to his mom and young siblings.

They didn't know of Joe Biden, but the president is part of the equation.

For others, this is a photo of a protest in Tijuana on the Mexican side of the border.

Biden, please let us in.

Read the T shirts and listen to this teenage boy guitar.

Come in.

Okay.

And whether right or wrong, this expectation is repeatedly being heard.

These teenagers get here.

Now, with the hope that Joe Biden will let them in as refugees, some U.

S officials are drawing similar conclusions.

Before the new president took office, we didn't have these types of numbers coming across as we see the unaccompanied Children all the time.

We caught one on Monday That was from coming in from Bolivia That was 10 years old by himself.

But does this add up?

Joe Biden is only two months into his presidency.

Can we really connect him to what's happening?

Well, to Judge Joe Biden, we need to look at the numbers, but we also need to look at how the U.

S.

Is treating people.

Okay.

This audio obtained by Propublica reportedly came from inside a border facility in Texas.

During the Trump Administration, you can hear Children separated from their parents and calling out for them This was one of the most divisive moments of Donald Trump's presidency.

And after the Ferrari, he stopped the child separation policy, though not before.

Hundreds of Children have been taken from their parents, and Joe Biden led the condemnation.

And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents.

And those kids are alone, nowhere to go, nowhere to go.

It's criminal, it's criminal, and it makes us a laughing stock and violates every notion of who we are as a nation.

Joe Biden was also clear that if he were president, the U.

S.

Would help those in need.

I would, in fact, make sure that there is.

We immediately surged to the border.

All those people are seeking asylum.

They deserve to be heard.

That's who we are.

And if that wasn't clear enough, he also said this where a nation says, If you want to flee and you're fleeing oppression, you should come well.

Now Joe Biden is president and he's taken immediate action.

We're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally not figuratively rip Children from the arms of their families, their mothers and fathers at the border.

This all got a lot of attention, as did that shift in the policy on unaccompanied Children and later the president.

Look, to add to his message, I can say quite clearly, don't come.

Don't leave your town or city or community.

So first come, then don't come until we tell you to.

All while changing the rules on Children and the Republican Senator Mitt Romney has tweeted, the Biden administration's lack of understanding of the power of incentives continues to baffle me.

Allowing unaccompanied minors to stay in the U.

S.

Will yield a flood of unaccompanied minors.

It's de facto child separation policy, he argues.

Now, as we've seen, the data does appear to show a rise in the number of unaccompanied Children after that change of policy, and that rising arrivals means more Children are temporarily in facilities like this.

And on that, the White House had this to say it's not acceptable, but I think the challenge here is that there are there are not that many options.

The argument being the Trump administration didn't maintain sufficient facilities.

But the Trump administration is no longer in power, and it also didn't change the policy on unaccompanied Children and pressure is growing.

The Democratic congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has tweeted about the Children's situation, saying, This is not okay.

Never has been okay, never will be okay.

No matter the administration or party.

And these pictures that I showed you earlier were released by another Democrat, the Texas congressman, Henry Cuellar.

He says he wants to show people what's happening and underlining all of this concern from across the U.

S.

Political spectrum is the question of whether the president has perhaps been naive because, make no mistake, Americans load the child separation policy.

Many of them wanted the Biden administration to treat Children differently to treat them better.

But changing the policy straightaway before facilities already risked an influx and risk Children ending up in unacceptable conditions.

And some would argue it also doesn't address the more fundamental issue here because the border between the US and Mexico is largely closed at the moment.

That's because of the pandemic, and so thousands of people are waiting in makeshift camps like these.

But of course, the border won't stay closed forever.

And when it opens, just like his predecessors, Joe Biden will need to outline how he plans to manage America's borders when many, many people want to get in.

As Sabrina Rodriguez writes in Politico, Biden is facing the reality that building the fair and humane immigration system he promised on the campaign trail is a huge undertaking.

Migrants aren't gonna stop coming just because his officials say they shouldn't, she argues, nor progressives and Republicans going to stay quiet just because he asks for patients to that.

Some would add that while the work on the border is urgent, it's actually America's role in the region beyond its borders.

That may offer the longer term solution.

Have a listen to Jonathan Blitzer from The New Yorker.

This problem is not going anywhere.

We've neglected all of the realities in the region that we've had a hand in for decades, and all of the consequences of that are announcing themselves at the southern border.

And they do periodically 2014 2019.

Now they'll continue.

Biden's pitch to the American people was in part simply that he wasn't Donald Trump, that he'd follow the science on the pandemic, that he'd stopped spreading misinformation.

This was a low bar.

Immigration is harder, much harder and cramped detention centers.

Filling up with unaccompanied Children is a long way from Joe Biden's vision of America.

But that's what's happening.

And his next move matters both to those Children and his presidency, Yeah.