ICE has called for volunteers to join them on the border immediately to help cope with a new surge in migrants at the border with Mexico.
It comes as Joe Biden's administration has admitted they are unable to add thousands of shelter beds to care for the record numbers of migrant teens and children.
Youngsters are currently stuck in crowded Border Patrol stations as the officials struggle to deal with the soaring numbers of families and minors crossing from Mexico.
More than 3,500 unaccompanied teens have been left in steel-and-concrete detention cells designed for adults as they wait for shelter beds to open up, reports The Washington Post.
Department of Homeland Security figures show minors are spending around 108 hours in border stations before being transferred – well beyond the 72-hour legal limit.
US Customs and Border protection have more than 130 minors who have been waiting for 10 days in custody amid the crisis at the border.
Biden's administration is desperate to find volunteer to crew border stations and tent sites as holding cells are crammed beyond capacity.
Critics have blamed the surge on the Democrats – saying they used migrants as "political pawns".
Republican Rep Chip Roy said people are getting injured and killed by following the American president’s “false promise of amnesty".
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained or processed 100,441 migrants last month, of which almost 10,000 were unaccompanied minors.
In an email, Michael Meade, ICE's acting assistant director for field operations,said: "Start and end dates are TBD, but could begin as soon as this weekend at locations along the SWB, most likely Texas.
"It is anticipated that the enforcement actions will continue to grow over the coming months."
The CBP is on pace to make more than 120,000 arrests and detentions in March, making it one of the busiest months in decades.
ICE officials have converted two detention centers into processing hubs, with the aim to release parents and children into the US with 72 hours.
BORDER SURGE
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas sent out a call this week for volunteers to deal with the "overwhelming number of migrants" seeking to access to the US.
In public, Mayorkas has refused to call it a crisis and instead said it was a “challenge.”
It comes as Biden is seeking to push through a major immigration bill to provide a legal path to US citizenship for millions of immigrants.
Biden has promised to try and make the immigration system more humane, and denied there is a crisis at the border.
Southern Border Coordinator Roberta Jacobson in a White House press briefing admitted that the administration’s policies may have encouraged a rise in asylum seekers at the border.
"We've seen surges before,” she said.
“Surges tend to respond to hope, and there was significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of pent-up demand.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday said the border is not “open” but acknowledged “a large flow of children across the border.”
Republicans have blasted Biden for his handling of the situation.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and a group of Republican members plan to travel Monday to South Texas to assess the crisis themselves.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Thursday tweeted: “There is a crisis on the southern border of Joe Biden’s creation.”
Video footage released this week showed a huge line of migrants waiting for rafts as human smugglers ferried them across the Rio Grande.
Rep Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican, on Wednesday said: "We have to recognize that words have consequences and actions have consequences.
“When the Biden administration refuses to enforce our immigration laws, when they refuse to build the wall, when they pass legislation like the bill that we passed yesterday that includes money for illegal immigrants, this is what happens."
Last week, former president Donald Trump blasted Biden over the "spiraling tsunami at the border" and warned "criminal" are surging into the United States.
Trump released a statement on Friday afternoon, stating the border is "totally out of control thanks to the disastrous leadership of Joe Biden."
Trump went on to boast of his "great relationship" with Mexico and "it's wonderful president," insisting that has been "dissipated by the gross incompetence and radicalism of the people currently in charge."
He added that a "mass incursion" is happening with immigrants coming into the country and claimed "many have criminal records, and many others have and are spreading Covid."
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