Military bases may house up to 20,000 migrant children
Plan may mirror action taken in 2014 by Obama administration
WASHINGTON – The Defense Department will house up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children on military bases in coming months, a Pentagon official said Thursday, the latest twist in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement effort.
The agreement comes after the Department of Health and Human Services made the request. Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, a military spokesman, said Thursday that the Pentagon will support it.
In a notification to lawmakers, the Pentagon said Wednesday night that officials at HHS asked whether beds could be provided for children at military installations “for occupancy as early as July through December 31, 2018.”
The plan seemingly will have similarities to 2014, when the Obama administration housed about 7,000 unaccompanied children on three military bases. As required under the Economy Act, the memo said, the Defense Department would be reimbursed for all costs incurred.
The sites will be run by HHS employees or contractors working with them, the memo said. They will provide care to the children, “including supervision, meals, clothing, medical services, transportation or other daily needs,” and HHS representatives will be at each location.
The memo, first reported on by The Washington Post, was sent to lawmakers Wednesday after President Trump reversed his administration’s unpopular policy to separate children from their parents as the migrants arrived at the southern U.S. border.
The president’s executive order directed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to “take all legally available measures” to provide Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen with “any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien families” and the construction of new facilities “if necessary and consistent with law.”
The Trump administration spent months planning, testing and defending its family separation Lirio Funes, 20, holds onto her daughter, Melissa Funes, 2, just after being detained by local officials after crossing the U.s.mexico border in Mcallen, Texas.
policy at the border, taking more than 2,500 children from their parents in the six weeks before the president signed an executive order Wednesday bringing the practice to a halt.
The U.S. government has been examining for weeks whether it can use military bases to house migrant children. Representatives from HHS visited three bases in Texas – Fort Bliss, Dyess Air Force Base and Goodfellow Air Force Base – last week to review their facilities for suitability, and they were scheduled to review Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas on Wednesday, Davis said.
The Obama administration set up temporary centers in 2014 at three military bases: Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and Naval Base Ventura County in California.
Asked about the possibility of military bases being involved again, Mattis said Wednesday that the Defense Department would
“see what they come up with” in HHS, and that the Pentagon would “respond if requested.”
Mattis dismissed concerns about housing migrants on military bases, noting that the Defense Department has done it on several occasions and for several reasons.
“We have housed refugees,” he said. “We have housed people thrown out of their homes by earthquakes and hurricanes. We do whatever is in the best interest of the country.”
The secretary, pressed on the sensitivities of the Trump administration separating children from their parents, said reporters would need to ask “the people responsible for it.”
“I’m not going to chime in from the outside,” he said. “There’s people responsible for it. Secretary Nielson, obviously, maintains close collaboration with us. You saw that when we deployed certain National Guard units there, so she’s in charge.”
Melania Trump made a surprise visit to a detention center near the southern border and said she wants to help reunite kids who have been ripped from their parents with their families.
The first lady met with officials at a children’s detention center in Mcallen, Texas, Thursday – a day after her husband reversed course and signed an executive order ending his own administration’s policy separating immigrant families who cross the border illegally.
“I’m here to learn about the facility and I know you house children on a longterm basis,” the first lady said before she toured a facility holding about 55 kids. “I’d like to ask you how I can help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible.”
About six of the 55 kids have been recently taken away from their parents. The rest, officials said, crossed into the U.S. alone or arrived with other relatives, according to a senior administration official.
More than 2,300 kids have been torn away from their families since the Trump administration instituted its “zero tolerance” policy regarding illegal border crossings. The approach drew a firestorm of criticism as images and audio from detention centers became public in recent days.
Recordings of children wailing for their parents and pictures of chain-link fences being used to corral kids ignited a swell of backlash against the administration. President Donald Trump attempted to cast blame for the practice on Democrats and as recently as Friday said that he was powerless to halt the separations.
However, he signed an executive order on Wednesday that calls for families to be detained together as adults face prosecution for entering the country illegally.
Trump’s executive action is not a permanent fix. It does not override the Flores consent decree, which means that the children could still likely be separated from their parents after 20 days. The order makes no mention of assisting in the reunification of families already torn apart by the Trump administration’s actions.
Melania Trump decided she wanted to make the trip on Tuesday, according to spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham.