Migration into the United States through the Mexico–US border started to surge in late 2020, reaching a record number of 1.73 million migrant encounters in 2021 with more expected in 2022. The migrants, who are mostly of Mexican, El Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Honduran citizenship, are reported to be escaping economic hardship, gang violence and environmental disaster in their home countries (particularly acute in the last three) to seek asylum in the US. Unlike the demographic of migrants in the preceding years, an increasing proportion of current migrants arriving at the Mexico–US border are children, most of whom are unaccompanied children. Policies related to the care and custody of such children have been controversial. From Wikipedia
