U.S. offers more beds for immigrant kids as numbers rise

Houston — President Joe Biden’s administration is instructing long-term facilities that hold immigrant children to lift capacity restrictions enacted during the coronavirus pandemic to open up much-needed beds in a system facing sharply increasing needs.

A memo issued Friday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells service providers to “temporarily increase capacity to full licensed capacity ... while implementing and adhering to strict COVID-19 mitigation measures.” It’s not immediately clear how many beds will come available beyond the roughly 7,000 that were online last month. HHS’ fully licensed capacity was over 13,000 beds late last year.

Some facilities have reduced their capacity by as much as half during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, hundreds of children waiting to be placed in HHS’ system are being detained by the U.S. Border Patrol in tent facilities or large, cold cells unequipped to hold minors. Images and stories of packed Border Patrol cells in 2018 and 2019 sparked outrage, with accounts of families and young children fending for themselves without adequate food and water.

Lifting pandemic-related caps could increase the risk of spreading the coronavirus within HHS facilities, especially as far more children enter the system. But the organizations that run HHS facilities and some advocates have pushed for more beds to made available if done safely, rather than the alternative of keeping kids in Border Patrol facilities longer or placing them in costly, unlicensed emergency centers.

“Given the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no 0% risk scenario, particularly in congregate settings,” says the memo, first reported by CNN. “Therefore, ORR facilities should plan for and expect to have COVID-19 cases.”