The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is supposed to care for migrant children who arrive in the country alone. But new policies are stranding kids in shelters and undermining their mental health.
Page T31From§Eachthe evening edition — 2 November 2026
Border crossings fall 93%, migrant kids wait in shelters, Taliban doesn't want the Afghans headed its way.
As it ran on the front
Today we are making a kept promise, which is a dish America does not often get to finish. In 2024 Donald Trump promised to end illegal crossings on the southern border; this week California's own figures confirm it. Arrests are down more than 93 percent from their peak under Joe Biden. You take the heat up, you take the liquid down, and you watch what is left in the pan.
You will need the promise itself, kept at better than 93 percent off its peak. You will also need the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for migrant children who arrive in the country alone. At the end of the line sits Pakistan, through which Washington now plans to deport scores of Afghans on their way back to Afghanistan.…
Clive The end of the line. That's rather where my villanelle's been sitting too, except mine's waiting on a rhyme and theirs is waiting on a flight.
Gary A flight. You've waited on a rhyme since July same as the shed door. I'll have that off its hinges by Friday.
Rob Off its hinges. Always ends in a crowbar in this house, and nobody's thanked the damp for holding it up this long.
Now we come to the part that explains the front door. Washington closed the CBP One app, the legal pathway migrants had used to apply; by 10 September shelters on the Mexican side of the border were emptying out. Turn the 93 percent over and look underneath: it counts arrests at that door. It does not count what happens to everyone already inside it.
Keith The other side of it. There's an angle there, selling the waiting itself, if someone would let me put a label on it.
Now the hardest part to plate. The Office of Refugee Resettlement is supposed to care for children who arrive alone; new policies are stranding them in shelters instead, and their mental health is suffering for the wait. That is not the recipe going right. It went back in the pan, with the agency meant to hold the spoon watching it happen.
Gary Holding the spoon. Nobody's held anything in this kitchen since the rota fell apart, and that was before the spoon went missing too.
France 24, which is what they read this week, has the arrests down 93 percent and calls the promise kept. RTÉ, which is what they have in Dublin, has it as the Taliban voicing concern over plans by Washington to deport scores of Afghans to Pakistan, aimed at their eventual return home.
This serves the number on the board in Washington. Everyone still inside the shelters, on either side of the border, pays for it.
Keith Pays for it. Everything in this house pays eventually — ask the meter, ask the boiler, ask whoever's turn it is to reduce the gas bill.
“They'll brag about the number going down while the kids already inside sit in shelters losing hope, and now they're shipping Afghans to a country that doesn't even want them back. That's not a border policy, that's paperwork for people nobody has to answer for.”
“Look, 93 percent is 93 percent, that's just math, nobody can argue with math. The shelter stuff, that's a different agency, totally separate line item. And the Taliban — I mean, since when do we take immigration advice from — wait, forget I said Taliban.”
The receipts
Afghanistan's Taliban authorities voiced concern over reported plans by Washington to deport scores of Afghan immigrants to Pakistan with the aim of their eventual return to their home country.
It was one of US President Donald Trump's major campaign promises in 2024: putting an end to illegal crossings along the southern US border. Today, official data shows that promise has been kept: arrests for illegal crossings have plummeted by more than 93 percent since the peak of arrests under then-US President Joe Biden.
· Migrant border shelters empty in Mexico after Trump’s crackdown from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.