500 unaccompanied boys making Freeman Coliseum temporary home
Some 500 boys from Central America, part of a wave of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the U.S., arrived early Tuesday at the Freeman Coliseum, where they were given hot meals, new jeans and sports shoes and set loose to play soccer on the arena grounds.
A group of elected officials who toured the facility Tuesday afternoon said conditions were spare but sanitary and humane.
“This may not be the Marriott resort, but it’s clean, it’s air-conditioned, it’s climate-controlled,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who negotiated with federal officials for several days to set conditions for the use of the county-owned arena. “We are doing everything we can to make sure we take care of these kids in a safe environment.”
The 497 migrant children, ages 13 to 17, were transferred from detention facilities along the border operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Those temporary holding centers have been overwhelmed by a spike in unaccompanied children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.
Buses carrying the children arrived at Freeman at 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, said Derrick Howard, executive director of Bexar County Community Arenas.
About 500 more children are expected Thursday, Howard said.
Bexar County reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to house up to 2,400 children at Freeman until May 30. Hundreds of additional children are expected to be housed temporarily in a vacant dormitory at Joint Base San Antonio-lackland.
At Freeman, the federally run migrant shelter will occupy about 250,000 square feet of space in Expo Hall and several nearby rooms. The children will have three hot meals and two snacks per day, along with access to portable showers and toilets, indoor and outdoor recreation areas, television and Wifi.
Wolff said that three outdoor soccer fields have been set up for the boys.
The children will stay at the coliseum until they have been placed with family members or other sponsors while their applications for asylum are being considered. Some also could be transferred to state-licensed local youth-care facilities to await decisions in their asylum cases.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who toured the arena with Wolff, Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Precinct 1 County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-flores, said the elected officials wanted to make sure the children were being “treated humanely” and “with dignity.”
“We found that although they’re in very spartan conditions, as you would expect in an emergency shelter, that they are being treated in that manner,” said Castro, a San Antonio Democrat. “Nobody would say this is an ideal situation for kids. But it’s a better situation than what you see at the border.”
Pictures taken inside crowded CBP facilities at the border have shown children sleeping on bedrolls with foil blankets, in living areas partitioned with sheets of clear plastic. Castro called the conditions “cramped, unsanitary.”
Wolff said he had been moved by his interactions with the newly arrived children, who he said greeted the elected officials with applause.
“Remember, they came up over 1,000 miles from the southern border of Mexico to make their way to the United States,” Wolff said. “These are good, good kids.”
Clay-flores said the children were given name tags, cloth linens and pillows for their cots, as well as new jeans and gym shoes.
“They seemed relieved,” she said.
About 40 employees of the city’s Head Start program are working at the coliseum until contractors hired by the federal government arrive.
About 2,100 cots have been set up there. An additional 300 have been set aside in a separate facility for children who test positive for the coronavirus, officials said.
Some children who tested positive have already been placed there, Castro said.
Children will be tested for the virus every three days, officials said.
The goal is for children to spend no more than five to nine days at the temporary shelter, unless they have tested positive for the coronavirus and need to be quarantined.
Bexar County staff will monitor conditions at the coliseum.
Federal officials have not given any indication that they want to extend the agreement beyond 60 days, Howard said.
“We hope and we expect that this will be a quick and efficient stop on their way to their family sponsors while they seek asylum in the United States,” Castro said. “These are just folks who want to seek their day in court and seek asylum.”