Thousands of young migrants, most from Central America, are making their way to the border hoping to meet parents in the United States. But for those caught in Mexico, there is almost only deportation.

The minors at the shelter are part of a growing wave of migrants hoping to find a way into the United States partly because they see President Biden as more tolerant on immigration issues than Donald J. Trump. According to The New York Times, border officials encountered more than 170,000 migrants in March. That figure is nearly a 70 percent increase from February and the highest monthly total since 2006.

Of these migrants, more than 18,700 were unaccompanied minors detained at border crossings, nearly double the February figure and more than five times the 3,490 detained in February of 2020, the documents showed. If they make it across the border, unaccompanied minors can try to present their case to the American authorities, go to school and one day find work and help relatives back home. Some can reunite with parents waiting there. Although, In 2019, 71 percent of all cases involving unaccompanied minors resulted in deportation orders. But many never usually turn up for their hearings and they dodge the authorities and slip into the population to live lives of evasion.

Most of the migrants are from Central America who were pushed north by a life made unsustainable because of poverty, violence, natural disasters, the pandemic, and encouraged by the Biden administration’s promise to take a more generous approach to immigration. They will usually wait in shelters in Mexico often for months for arrangements to be made to be deported.

In 2018, 1,318 children were admitted into shelters for unaccompanied minors in Ciudad Juárez, the local authorities said. By 2019, the number had grown to 1,510, though it dipped to 928 last year because of the pandemic. But in the first two and a half months of this year, the number has soared to 572 a rate that, if maintained, would far surpass the total reached in 2019, the highest year on record.

When minors enter the shelters, their schooling ends up stopping because the staff is unable to provide classes for so many coming from different countries and different educational backgrounds. Therefore, Instead the minors fill their days with art classes, where they often draw or paint photos of their home countries. They watch television, play in the courtyard, or complete chores to help the shelter run, like laundry.