NASA has reached out to employees to ask for volunteers to help staff facilities for unaccompanied migrant children, according to reports.

Last month it was reported that a NASA site in California was being considered as a potential location to house the growing number of migrants seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

In an email shared by The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein on Twitter, the space agency told workers that the Department of Health and Human Services is looking for people to undertake 120 days of work to help manage the surge.

It stated that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the HSS are "calling upon our Federal Agency family of exceptional public servants to lend support to this humanitarian effort through this detail opportunity.

SURGING NUMBERS

"This opportunity provides a continuum of care for children, including placements in foster care, shelter, and residential care providers that provide temporary housing and to assist with caring for and placing children without legal immigration status who have entered the country at the Southern border without a parent or legal guardian."

According to reports, the number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has increased dramatically over the past few months.

In March, more than 170,000 migrants are said to have arrived – the highest figures in more than a decade.

Two hurricanes that hit Central America last year are said to have caused the surge, experts said, as well as the impact of the pandemic.

Two weeks ago, it was reported that the Biden administration had started looking for more federal volunteers to help with overcrowding at border stations.

During a meeting last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the administration was considering a plan to fill in the “gaps” in the border wall.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, speaking to reporters Tuesday, said the “wall construction remains paused to the extent permitted by law.”

“When the administration took office funds had been diverted from congressionally appropriated military construction projects and other appropriated purposes toward building the wall.

“Federal agencies are continuing to review wall contracts and develop a plan to submit to the president soon. It is paused. There is some limited construction that has been funded and allocated for but it is otherwise paused.”

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