More immigrant children held in shelters

Trump’s expanded ‘zero-tolerance’ border policy results in a recent surge in family separations.

HOUSTON — Family separations on the southern border because of President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy increased the number of immigrant children in government shelters 22% during the last month, officials said.

As of Wednesday, 10,852 migrant children were being held at shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services, compared with 8,886 at the end of last month, said agency spokesman Kenneth Wolfe. The average time such children spent at government shelters has also increased, from 51 to 56 days.

The new zero-tolerance policy piloted in Arizona and west Texas last year was extended border-wide last month. Under the policy, migrants who enter the United States illegally face misdemeanor charges in federal criminal court, felony charges if they have crossed illegally before; parents are sent to federal detention, their children to shelters. In the past, such cases were often handled administratively, not in criminal court.

Trump tweeted inaccurately over the weekend that a “horrible law” was prompting the migrant family separations. Immigrant advocates contended that the administration was to blame for pursuing criminal charges against migrants, instead of handling their cases administratively.

The Department of Health and Human Services has 100 shelters in 14 states, and “additional temporary housing is only sought as a last resort when current locations are reaching capacity,” said Wolfe, a spokesman for the department’s Administration for Children and Families.

That’s what’s happening now that the shelters are 95% full, he said. The agency has 1,218 extra beds reserved elsewhere, including several hundred at a governmentowned building near an Air Force base in Homestead, Fla. Officials are also considering housing children at several military bases, as they did after an influx of Central American children in 2014.

Unaccompanied minors now include children who cross the border without an adult and those separated from adults charged in federal criminal court under the new policy. At least 638 migrants who crossed with 658 children were charged under the policy between May 6 and May 19, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told a Senate committee last week.

Last year, Health and Human Services assumed custody of more than 40,000 immigrant children, releasing 93% to family members and other sponsors (half were parents, 40% close relatives). The department has a responsibility to assume custody within 72 hours and try to place children, but it is not required to track sponsors.

Last week, Health and Human Services drew criticism after reports that 1,475 of the children they placed last year were “missing,” according to a phone survey 30 days later. Administration officials responded by announcing an agreement by Health and Human Services to give the Department of Homeland Security access to information about sponsors they’re still vetting, and to improve the process, fingerprinting parents who claim children. Homeland Security officials said the new coordination will better protect migrant children, but some migrant advocates worry it could deter families from claiming children.

“If somebody is unwilling to claim their child from custody because they’re concerned about their own immigration status, I think that de facto calls into question whether they’re an adequate sponsor and whether we should be releasing a child to that person,” Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, told reporters in a telephone briefing Tuesday.

Immigrants advocates said the added oversight could increase the number of children in already crowded Health and Human Services shelters.

“Their workload has grown significantly, and they’re not equipped to be handling children who have been orphaned by these new policies,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.

Migrant parents already appear less willing to claim their children, said Leah Chavla, a policy advisor at the Women’s Refugee Commission in Washington.

The percentage of unaccompanied youths claimed by parents has dropped from 60% three years ago to 41% this fiscal year after crackdowns including raids on sponsors last summer that resulted in 400 people being detained. “Families are more reluctant to come forward,” Chavla said.

molly.hennessy-fiske @latimes.com