Good morning, I'm Arjun Singh from The Washington Post, and this is the Daily 202 from Monday

March 22nd.

In today's news, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin makes an unannounced trip to Afghanistan,

and the accused gunman in the Atlanta shootings gets expelled from his church.

But first, the big idea.

On entering office, President Joe Biden sought to draw a stark contrast between how his

administration approached handling the crossing of migrants across the nation's southern

border and that of his predecessor.

On his first day in office, Biden signed five immigration executive orders and promised

to embark on a more humane immigration policy than that of former President Donald Trump.

But even as Biden vocally distanced himself from Trump, the reality on the border, which

is seeing a consistent flow of migrants from Central America, has left the administration

in a politically vulnerable position that Republicans are now exploiting.

The post-Ashley Parker, Nick Miroff, Sean Sullivan, and Tyler Pageer report that there

are now more than 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the care of the Department of

Health and Human Services, and 5,000 more in the care of customs and border protection.

And Republicans have seized on that uptick of crossings and have blamed the administration's

policies, which they say are too favorable to migrants.

Among several of the administration's moves on immigration, one notable one has been

the decision to allow unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to enter the country.

Some argue that policy decision along with the administration's muddled messaging have

encouraged migrants to try and come to the U.S. in hopes of being met with a more hospitable

...