According to an exclusive from McClatchy DC, The Trump administration is looking to build tent cities at military posts in Texas to house increasing numbers of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention.
The Department of Health and Human Services is scheduled to visit Fort Bliss, an army base near El Paso. They will look at a parcel of land which is being considered for this tent city. This tent city will house between 1,000 and 5,000 children according to U.S. officials.
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HHS confirmed they are looking at the Fort Bliss site, Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo for potential use as shelters.
The plan comes as increasing numbers of children are being separated from their parents. The number of children in U.S. government custody has increased more than 20 percent. This increase has come with the roll out of policy at the hands of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielson that separates children as their parents await prosecution.
HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement is now responsibile for more than 11,200 migrant children without parents or guardians. They most routinely monitor them at the 100 shelters which are now 95 percent full.
There are standard beds that are available all year round and temporary beds that can be made available to address increased migration flows.
In addition to this, unaccompanied children can be placed in an appropriate setting while a sponsor is identified to care for the children.
Trump has blamed Congress for allowing the loopholes that require federal authorities to release undocumented immigrants to await hearings for which many don’t show up.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein charged that loopholes prevent quick deportation of unaccompanied children.
“It can take months and sometimes years to adjudicate those claims once they get into the federal immigration court system, and they often fail to appear for immigration proceedings,” Rosenstein said. “In fact, approximately 6,000 unaccompanied children each year fail to appear when they’ve been summoned. They’re released and they don’t show up again.”
In 2014 during the Obama Administration, tens of thousands of unaccompanied children and their families had been apprehended.
There was a surge of Salvadoran, Honduran and Guatemalan mothers and children fleeing into the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
But now children who aren’t unaccompanied are being separated from their families too.
Leon Fresco, who was a deputy assistant general under the Obama Administration, said:
“The point is separating families is not only controversial, it’s also inordinately more expensive.”
“Detaining children for immigration purposes is never in their best interest and the prospect of detaining kids in tent cities is horrifying,” said Clara Long, U.S. researcher at Human Rights Watch. “US authorities should focus on keeping families together, ensuring due process in asylum adjudications and protecting the rights of children.”
