DHS secretary asks Congress for new authority to send migrant kids to home countries

The Department of Homeland Security is "grappling with a humanitarian and security catastrophe that is worsening by the day," DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wrote in a letter sent to Congress on Thursday, arguing she needs assistance dealing with the surge in migrants at the southern border.

In the letter, obtained by ABC News, Nielsen says the majority of migrants are families and unaccompanied minors "who pose a unique challenge to the system because most cannot be easily cared for, efficiently processed, or expeditiously removed, due to resource constraints and outdated laws."

She requested new legal authority to immediately deport unaccompanied minors to their home countries, ABC reports, and to detain undocumented migrant families together until asylum claims go through. "Now we face a system-wide meltdown," Nielsen wrote. "DHS facilities are overflowing, agents and officers are stretched too thin, and the magnitude of arriving and detained aliens has increased the risk of life-threatening incidents."

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