According to new data, almost 19,000 unaccompanied alien children have crossed the United States border and ended up in Tennessee since 2015.
The data states that most of the children coming to the state have been placed with family members like a parent or sibling, with a vast majority arriving since the coronavirus pandemic.
The placement of unaccompanied alien children made headlines in Tennessee three years ago when news reports emerged of the abuse of some of the children placed in a Chattanooga facility.
This data comes from the New York Times. The newspaper obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after filing a lawsuit and was released to the public at the end of the year, covering documented unaccompanied minors crossing the border between Jan. 1, 2015, and May 28, 2023.
Since 2021, nearly 400,000 children have crossed the U.S. border without their parents, with most fleeing countries suffering from economic turmoil.
A vast majority of these children are from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This trend is also reflected in Tennessee, where 96% of the unaccompanied alien children have come from those three countries.
