Xavier Becerra will face influx of immigrant children on top of pandemic in Biden Cabinet job
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Xavier Becerra appears during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on his nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)Greg Nash / Associated Press
WASHINGTON — When Xavier Becerra takes over as President Biden’s health and human services secretary, he won’t just be confronting a pandemic. He’ll also be responsible for the care of thousands of immigrant children.
Health and Human Services manages shelters for undocumented immigrant children who arrive in the U.S. by themselves. The California attorney general will take his post in the Cabinet amid a near-record surge of immigrant children coming to the southern border at a time when the shelter network is already near capacity and is constrained by the coronavirus pandemic.