secretary is leading a bipartisan trip to the border today amid new information obtained by nbc news the humanitarian emergency at the border is only escalating. ♪♪ welcome to friday. it's meet the press daily. i'm chuck todd. president biden left the white house a short time ago. he spoke to reporters about china, russia and vaccines. he is about to land in atlanta where he will visit with asian community leaders today amid the fallout over the atlanta spa shootings. his first stop is cdc headquarters coming as the administration announced a loosening of guidance for schools due to promising data about transmission rates in the classroom. in new published guidelines, the cdc calls for three feet of social distancing in schools as long as masks are worn and community transmission in general is not high. this could pave the way for more kids back in the classroom. obviously, three feet cuts the amount of space you need to find to see how big of a classroom you need. the white house covid response team is holding a briefing where it is discussing all of this guidance. they have to address concerning news about an uptick in cases in parts of the country. that comes as the biden administration is marking 100 million vaccine doses administered since he took the oath of office. they have achieved a major goal early. some public health experts are warning that it's not clear who is winning this race against time and the variants. the vaccines or the spread of those contagious variants. those variants are part of what sent europe into another spiral and restrictions and lockdowns. the administration experts to have a surplus of doses in the united states. it appears to have allowed it to engineer vaccine diplomacy by brokering agreements with mexico as we need something from them. they get badly needed vaccines and we get badly needed assistance to address the humanitarian issue at the border. dhs announced secretary mayorkas is traveling to the border today with a bipartisan delegation of senators to assess the situation. specifically as it relates to unaccompanied migrant children. this comes as nbc news obtained data showing that more than 500 migrant children had been in custody for more than ten days, past the three-day legal limit. many facilities which are not built to house children have far surpassed their capacity. monica alba is outside the white house. julia ainsley is with us. and the dean of brown university school of public health. i want to start with julia and the issue of immigration, the border and this refugee crisis with the unaccompanied minors. mayorkas is on the border today. that's obviously a little bit of public relations. what are they saying to you about this growing problem of essentially holding these unaccompanied minors much longer than the legal limit? >> reporter: well, there's a little bit of finger pointing and there's a lot of scrambling right now. we have dhs needing another agency, health and human services, to get as many beds open as they can to hold the children so they can get out of the border processing facilities. as we reported overnight, there are more than 500 children who have been there in the border processing facilities over ten days. just to recap the conditions there, the reason why there's a three-day legal limit is because often they don't have beds. they sleep on the floor, on mats, given an aluminum blanket. sometimes they barely get outside. lights are kept on 24 hours a day. we know they are overcrowded. we know the donna, texas, facility built to take some of the capacity down to try to increase capacity now has 3,300 immigrants in there as of a snapshot on thursday. that was only built for 250 people, chuck. now they need hhs to put as many more bes online to get the children out of the conditions. it's harder and harder because they need licensing requirements to open what used to be state licensed facilities that are permanent structures. when they try to get temporary facilities, that takes time. fema is their best tool. we were able to see fema start two new facilities, including one in dallas that could take in 3,000 teenage migrant boys. >> julia, i want to ask about the don't call it a quid pro quo perhaps quid pro quo with mexico and the vaccine doses and what mexico is doing that they say is unrelated to the decision by the united states to send the vaccines, but coincidentally, they have tightened their borders and have agreed to do what exactly, julia? >> reporter: we understand from reporting that there has been conversations between the biden administration and mexico with the president there to talk about ways they can enforce the border. this was the same strategy we saw under obama. moving the american border further out, further south, to try to get more interdiction of migrants before they pass through mexico. what they are not doing is they are not taking back a lot of the immigrants that the biden administration is turning back. we reported just yesterday that there are a number of families that under policy are supposed to be expelled back into mexico, given the covid-19 protocols in place in the u.s. mexico says they don't have the capacity, especially in the rio grande valley, the epicenter of the overcrowding. they are not taking them back. they are coming into the united states. there's more that the biden administration needs from mexico right now than just interdiction of those immigrants further south. they need them to increase capacity and be able to take care of a lot of the migrants that are making it here but the u.s. is turning away. >> monica, a week ago the administration was saying those astrazeneca doses, they are not going anywhere. hang on. the white house is saying it is not connected. boy, this certainly looks like it was connected. what are you learning from the white house? >> reporter: they are standing by that defense. the white house is saying that the conversations had actually been ongoing behind the scenes for weeks. the mexican president said he had been talking and making this request over the last two months essentially since the biden administration was sworn into office. absolutely, you have to note the timing of this. the president has been asked repeatedly, when will you send surplus vaccines to other countries? he was pressed on this last week when he was meeting with the quad countries about what they were able to do. he said the priority is to get americans vaccinated. that's the line here. they want to make sure people understand that even if they are able to give these millions of doses to mexico and to canada, by the way, that's another part of the explanation here, that it's not just about what's going on on the border, but they are now so encouraged they say about the amount of vaccines, and this deadline that by the end of may, they believe there should be enough and then there will be some left over to send to the north american partners and then even other countries. the other factor at play is astrazeneca isn't approved for use in the united states. that's another reason they said they are happy to send it elsewhere, where it can actually be applied for more global vaccination progress. >> the issue of hitting the covid deadline, obviously, this was going to be a bit more -- perhaps a different visit to atlanta than what it turned into. is there going to be a new -- we heard -- he talked to reporters on the south lawn. we have made 100 million doses. what is the next achievable goal? what do they believe they have to hit? >> reporter: the president did tease this. he didn't give the whole deadline away yet. he said he is going to announce that next week. it's unclear whether it's about a new goal for the next 100 days or something they want to be able to do in the next 40 days before the 100 day marker. he seemed to indicate that they think they might be able to double the 100 million in that 100 day time frame. maybe six weeks from now you see them get to 200 million shots. it's not clear. that's why you see all this new guidance on the schools today, because that's another major promise the biden white house made in terms of reopening them. they are hoping with the new guidance, that's one way to make that possible. >> i want to quickly ask you, any official comment from the white house or from the gaggle, we saw the president tripped on his way up air force one. not one of those deals -- we know others might be having a lot of fun with it at this point. everything okay with him? >> reporter: it's a human moment that happened to a human who happens to be, of course, the president of the united states. a lot of attention on everything that he does. the white house says he is fine. they declined to answer whether he was inspected by any kind of doctor aboard air force one after he did take that tumble, which lasted multiple seconds. it was quite a fall going up the stairs. they said it was very, very windy at joint base andrews. that may have contributed to it. he is doing completely fine according to the white house spokeswoman on the plane. >> we have all run up stairs and had that moment ourselves. if you haven't, you are not a human being. that's for sure. monica alba, thank you. where are we at and what is your level of concern? i ask you this because there's -- on a scale to michael osterholm -- we know his concerns about the variant. he thinks that -- he looks at europe and he is worried we are about to have a carbon copy. where are you on the scale of concern? >> i'm concerned -- we're not going to have another europe on our hands. we're not going to have a major fourth surge. what we are looking towards and what looks like is going happen is a significant bump in cases in states. that means more infections, more hospitalizations, more deaths. the reason i'm confident we will avoid what's happening in europe is twofold. one is, we vaccinated a lot more people. second, we vaccinated a lot of our highest risk people, older folks. i don't see us getting crushed in the same way. none of this means i'm not worried at all. i do think we will see more infections and deaths. we have to do our part right now. this is not the moment to let go of our public health measures. keep them in place until all high risk people are vaccinated. that's another four weeks, six at the moment, but probably four weeks. high risk folks will be vaccinated. that's when we can relax some of our public health measures. >> you say that. but we have. basically, we have blown past that guidance at this point. in some ways, it's too late for that guidance to kick in. >> no. i will tell you two things. there are some states that have not. there are states holding on which is great. they should keep holding on. second, states that have can reverse. they can pull back a little bit. again, no one is saying keep things shut down for months. we are saying, until the end of april is probably when most or all high risk people who want a vaccine will have gotten one. we have to hold tight. i do think states can do this. a lot of states will. i'm worried enough states won't, that will be a problem for people living there. >> fast forward to the fall. i'm curious, what kind of risk are we at with europe so far behind in vaccinations and, sadly, i think there's fears that vaccine hesitancy will be another factor there, but they have problems. we have the issue in brazil. how not out of the woods will we look in the fall? >> it's a fabulous question. on one hand, i think the u.s. is going to be in very good shape in the fall. we will have lots of people vaccinated. i'm hoping that we don't have substantial problems with hesitancy and that most people, most americans will be vaccinated. i suspect older kids will be vaccinated by the fall. the question will be, what is happening in the rest of the world? it's a global pandemic. what's happening with new variants that are arising potentially because there are large outbreaks elsewhere. how well are we doing on global vaccination? as we get americans vaccinated -- i think by april, may, we will have the majority of americans who want a vaccine vaccinated. we have to shift our attention towards global vaccination. it's the right thing to do. it's good for american leadership. it's also going to help protect americans. i think our fall depends a lot on what's happening in the rest of the world. >> at this point, when you look at our speed of vaccinations, is the only thing -- at this point, what's preventing us from 5 million shots a day? the physical people available to put the shots in arms? >> no. i don't think distribution is our biggest holdup. maybe in a few places. it's largely vaccine supply. the supply continues to get better. we are producing more and more vaccine doses and getting them out. right now, that's still the barrier. that's going to switch in april. in april at some point, we will have plenty of vaccines. i think we will have plenty of vaccinators. we won't have plenty of arms, because there will be people who are still hesitant at some point in april, maybe early may, we will have the opposite problem of where we are right now. one of the things we have to do right now is we have to work on vaccine hesitancy now, not wait until may. figure out what's holding people back, start addressing those issues. we want to make sure a large chunk of americans get vaccinated. >> there's one good trend line we saw in mississippi where after two months of vaccinations, hesitancy has gone down and interest in the vaccine has gone up because people see their friends and family and neighbors getting the vaccines and not having problems. if that's the canary in the coal mine, maybe we will get in better shape. good to have your expertise. thank you. still ahead, we are learning more about the victims in the atlanta spa shooting. the latest on the investigation. we will talk to an arizona democrat about whether they are doing enough to handle the crisis at the border. and a look at life after lockdown. ♪ hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play ♪ ♪ hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid ♪ ♪ and all that glitters is gold ♪ get 5 boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger. only at applebee's. 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(laughing) (trumpet playing) someone behind me, come on. pick that up, pick that up, right there, right there. as long as you keep making the internet an amazing place to be, we'll keep bringing you a faster, more secure, and more amazing internet. xfinity. the future of awesome. welcome back. as we mentioned, new data obtained by nbc news shows a growing humanitarian situation at the southern border. as of thursday, more than 500 migrant children had been in border patrol custody for more than ten days. that's well past the three-day legal limit. there are 4,500 children in custody along the southern border. it's a number that continues to increase and it increased by more than 200 since sunday. joining me is arizona congressman guyaga. was this inevitable because of the presidential election, covid, that we would hit this situation? were we caught flat footed? >> it's a lot of things. we have to remember there was pent-up demand prior to this. you have flows that happen this time of year. this happened under obama, under trump and now under biden. you are correct, covid has created a bigger problem. we have to be responsible stewards for those unaccompanied minors. we have to test them to make sure they don't have covid. in the areas we are placing them, it's 25% capacity. that's why we have a situation where we have a backlog of minors that are staying in detention instead of being placed into foster homes or with parents. we are being responsible in sending back non-unaccompanied adults, for them to apply for their refugee status. it's a combination of a lot of things. now this administration is doing better than they were a couple weeks ago. it's very difficult. >> they have struggled with the message of don't come. we heard don't come right now. don't come. what is the best way to create deterrence? if our policy is, every unaccompanied minor essentially is going to get placed temporarily in the united states, that ends up not creating a deterrent. >> it's very difficult, because we have a moral problem here. are we going to turn away children when they get to the border? we're not going to send them back into mexico where they will get picked up in child traffic. what we are doing right now is probably the most aggressive thing we can do. we are buying tv, radio. it's not just biden saying don't come and members of congress. we are actively saying that in central america in all ways possible. at the same time, what we need do is show the amount of people we are sending back. we hear about arrests. they mean we arrest them and deporting them. that's the message we have to be sending. if you are an adult, you are not going to have access to the united states. you will be stopped at the border and returned until you can legally file your claim in a proper manner. >> i want to ask you about immigration politics. the two bills that passed yesterday in the house, i think in a different political climate don't have a problem getting through the senate. now you are hearing, for instant lindsey graham, who in theory was supportive of the policies in the past, and essentially is blaming the current situation as a reason. none of these have anything to do with that. >> correct. >> his reasoning is essentially, well, it would send the message that -- it would send the message that more people should come. what do you say to that criticism where republicans don't want to work with you right now? >> because this has been always the story of republicans, once back in the day when lindsey was in a saner state of mind, we had problems with the republicans in the house that didn't want to move legislation. the time for immigration reform is always now. what's happening at the border has nothing to do with the dream act. if you are a young person, if you are a child that gets refugee status, you are not eligible for the dream act, nor eligible for a green card or anything of that nature. the fact that people like lindsey graham are mixing them together, they are doing it for their own personal reasons but also to confuse it and use it as a wedge issue. republican voters are in support of this. what we need is leadership from republicans and to follow through in the past where they said they are pro. this is a compromised bill in terms of what we want. it's not the 11 million families we want to legalize. these are young men and women, now older in their 30s, they lived here forever, that don't know any other world except for the united states. >> i'm curious, i know -- i want to change subjects quick before you have to go. the issue of voting rights. new voting restrictions being brought up in your home state of arizona. i know where you are on h.r. 1. you served in the house. >> in the statehouse. she's been my boss. she's great. >> have you been lobbying her about the