WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden will highlight the plight of unaccompanied minors trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in a visit to Guatemala.
Senior administration officials on Sunday announced that Biden was adding that stop to a previously announced trip to Latin America this week. He’s planning to attend the U.S.-Ghana World Cup match-up in Brazil Monday, then head to Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
Officials say Biden will meet with leaders from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras on Friday.
The number of unaccompanied minors from those countries has soared more than 1,000 percent amid rampant crime and poverty in those countries, according to Border Patrol data. This year border agents have apprehended 48,000 children from those three countries.
President Barack Obama has called the surge a crisis.
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