On Tuesday, April 15, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts rejected President Joe Biden's request to house migrant children in the state amid of the largest border crisis in the United States.

"We reserve our resources to serve our children," the governor said, turning his back on hundreds of minors at risk at the border. 

Ricketts confirmed that he "disagrees" with the Biden administration's position of allowing migrant minors who entered the country unaccompanied by adults to be reunited with their parents or relatives without first going through the process of requesting asylum or without an immigration court's decision. He also assured that Nebraska is not responsible for "solving the immigration crisis created by President Biden" by allowing "thousands of unaccompanied minors" to enter the country.

In previous statements, the Republican governor has indicated that migrant workers in Nebraska will wait at the end of the line to be vaccinated against COVID-19 after citizens, and who previously supported restrictions on rental housing for people with irregular immigration status. I don't want our children to suffer as a result of President Biden's bad public policy," Ricketts said, adding that a better alternative would be to reunite children and their parents "in their home countries."

Ricketts follows in the footsteps of governors in Iowa and South Carolina, who have also rejected the president's request, indicating that available resources will be used only for local minors. According to a report in The New York Times, there are currently 20,000 foreign minors in the custody of federal immigration authorities, and another 15,000 are expected to arrive in the next two months as a result of the impact of the pandemic and even hurricanes in Mexico and other areas of Central America.