The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Why young migrants have been sent to Texas tent camp
More than 1,600 migrant children have been sent with little notice on late-night voyages to their new home: a barren tent city in West Texas, where they do not receive schooling and have limited access to legal representation. The Trump administration opened the site because shelters that house migrant children have been overflowing. Here is a look at what is happening: Who are the children and what brought them to the United States?
Most of them are Central American teenagers who journeyed to the United States alone, hoping to win asylum status or slip into the country illegally. Known as unaccompanied minors, more than half are Guatemalans, who have been fleeing in increasing numbers from destitute villages in the country’s western highlands.
Why are they being moved at night and without notice?
To avoid escape attempts. Migrant children are housed in what are known as unsecure facilities, meaning that doors are unlocked and they can technically leave at any time, though they are closely monitored and are strongly discouraged from doing so. Several shelter workers explained that children who are on their way to the rapidly expanding tent city in Tornillo, Texas, are being woken up and moved in the middle of the night because they will be less likely to try to run away in the dark.
The children are told of the move only a few hours prior so that they do not have time to formulate an escape plan, the workers said. (Migrant children are held in unsecure facilities rather than immigration jails, where adult border crossers are housed, because of a federal consent decree that says children can be detained in secure facilities for only 20 days.)
If they were already in shelters, why are they being moved?
The shelters that are traditionally used to detain unaccompanied minors are overflowing.
They had been hovering at close to 90 percent capacity since May, and each month, more children have been streaming across the border. Because conditions at the Tornillo tent city are generally rougher than in shelters, the government is seeking to minimize time that children spend there, so it is electing to send children who have been in the United States longer and are therefore closer to being released to sponsors, rather than sending new arrivals.
How do the two types of sites compare?
The shelters are licensed and monitored by state child welfare agencies that impose requirements on staff hiring and training, as well as education and safety. Children in shelters receive regular schooling and must have access to lawyers who help develop their claims for asylum or other forms of legal immigration status.
Conversely, the tent city is considered an emergency shelter and is thus unregulated, except for a loose set of guidelines crafted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees it. The guidelines do not require schooling, so children are given workbooks but are not obligated to use them. Access to legal services at the tent city is also limited.
Why is the population of detained migrant children skyrocketing?
More than 13,000 migrant children are currently detained — the highest number yet and a fivefold increase since last year. That is mostly because fewer children are being released to live with sponsors than ever before. Sponsors — usually relatives or family friends — tend to be undocumented immigrants, and policies introduced by the Trump administration have made it easier for immigration authorities to find and arrest potential sponsors who come forward to claim a child. As a result, some potential sponsors have stopped coming forward out of fear. Those who come forward anyway are having to wait longer because of added red tape.
Is there a crisis at the border?
Border crossings by unaccompanied minors jumped in May, and then again slightly in August. However, the past five years of data on unaccompanied minors shows that the 2018 numbers are right in the middle. Unauthorized crossings in general along the southwestern border have sharply declined over the past two decades, according to government data, though particular groups of migrants, such as Guatemalans and adult men arriving with children, have increased significantly.
How much does it cost to care for the children?
The latest estimates from Congress suggest that it costs about $750 a day to house a child in the tent city — about three times as much as the cost of a single placement in a shelter — even though conditions there are comparatively austere. Government grants also pay for the legal representation of some unaccompanied minors. Access to legal representation is limited in the tent city.