WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday there was a surprising increase in August in the number of children entering the country illegally after those figures fell steadily since the child migrant crisis a year ago.
"We have seen over the last year a precipitous decline in the number of unaccompanied children attempting to enter this country without proper documentation and we have seen just in the last month, in the month of August, a surprising uptick," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
"They are an aberration from the trend we've seen long-term" though the numbers were still far below last year's peak, he said.