By Associated Press President Barack Obama described a surge in unaccompanied immigrant children caught trying to cross the Mexican border as an 'urgent humanitarian situation', on Monday. Obama discussed the issue as the White House asked Congress for an extra $1.4 billion in federal money to cope. The president said the U.S. will temporarily house the children at two military bases. President Barack Obama pictured speaking in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Monday Obama appointed the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, to be in charge of the situation. In its new estimates, the government said as many as 60,000 children, mostly from Central America, could be caught this year trying to cross the Mexican border illegally, costing the U.S. more than $2.28 billion to house, feed and transport the children to shelters or reunite them with relatives already living in the United States.
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90% of those sheltered by the government after crossing are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador
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The total of child migrants crossing the border is expected to exceed 60,000 this year
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The group also now includes more girls and larger numbers of children younger than 13
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Children cross because of poverty and to find their migrant parents in USA
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Government denies that children who cross are allowed to stay
Obama described the growing humanitarian issue at the border in a presidential memorandum on Monday that outlined a government-wide response led by @placeholder.