Espaillat: ‘Break down’ red tape that keeps children in custody

Rep. Adriano Espaillat called on the Biden administration Wednesday to “break down” a slow-moving bureaucracy that keeps migrant children locked in detention facilities for weeks even though they have family in the U.S.

Espaillat (D-Manhattan, Bronx) — himself undocumented for a time after immigrating to New York from the Dominican Republic in the 1960s — made the plea for reform after joining other House Democrats in touring a Texas detention center holding mostly Central American children apprehended after crossing the southern border. Espaillat told the Daily News some of the children he spoke with had been there for more than two weeks.

“That’s a problem,” said Espaillat, who represents a district that includes upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. “We have to work harder and break down the bureaucracies that are keeping them from reuniting with their families.”

The teenage children held at the facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, that Espaillat toured is managed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s the type of facility to which underage migrants are transferred after being detained by the Border Patrol if the government can’t immediately find relatives — or “sponsors” — they can stay with in the U.S. while seeking asylum or other legal status. But Espaillat said migrants he spoke with have relatives in the U.S. “They have family members and people that they know across the country,” he said. “They need to be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.”

Still, Espaillat said the facility he toured was in far better condition than a detention center he visited during the Trump administration. “The culture, the atmosphere with the Trump administration — it was very punitive, harsh and inhumane,” he said.