Emergency sites for migrant children raising safety concerns
The U.S. government has stopped taking immigrant teenagers to a converted camp for oilfield workers in West Texas as it faces questions about the safety of emergency sites it is quickly standing up to hold children crossing the southern border.
The Associated Press has learned that the converted camp has faced multiple issues in the four days since the Biden administration opened it up amid a scramble to find space for immigrant children. More than 10% of the camp’s population has tested positive for COVID-19 and at least one child had to be hospitalized.
An official working at the Midland, Texas, site said most of the Red Cross volunteers staffing the site don’t speak Spanish, even though the teenagers they care for are overwhelmingly from Central America. When the facility opened, there weren’t enough new clothes to give to teenagers who had been wearing the same shirts and pants for several days, the official said. There were also no case managers on site to begin processing the minors’ release to family members elsewhere in the U.S.
Bringing in teenagers while still setting up basic services “was kind of like building a plane as it’s taking off,” said the official, who declined to be named due to government restrictions.
U.S. Health and Human Services notified local officials in Midland late Wednesday night that it had no plans to bring more teenagers to the site, according to an email seen by The Associated Press. There were still 485 youths on site as
of Wednesday, 53 of whom had tested positive for COVID-19.
The government on Wednesday brought around 200 teenagers to another emergency site at the downtown Dallas convention center, which could expand up to 3,000 minors. HHS spokesman Mark Weber said taking more teenagers to Midland was on “pause for now.” HHS will also not open an influx facility for children at at Moffett Federal Airfield near San Francisco, according to Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo.
President Joe Biden’s administration has been sharply criticized for its response to a surge in crossings of unaccompanied immigrant children. As roughly 4,500 children wait in Border Patrol facilities unequipped for long-term detention, with some sleeping on floors, Health and Human Services has rushed to open holding sites across the country and tried to expedite its processes for releasing children in custody. About 9,500 minors are in HHS custody.
In addition, the U.S. has seen a sharp increase in Central American families
arriving at the border who are fleeing violence, poverty and the effects of a destructive hurricane. Biden has kept intact an emergency measure enacted by the Trump administration during the pandemic that allows the government to quickly expel them to Mexico, though families with young children are generally allowed to enter through South Texas.
Maria Cuellar, 38, of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was expelled this week along with her 10-year-old boy. Cuellar said she had heard the U.S. was again admitting migrants with the changing administration. She said her house was ravaged by Hurricane Eta in November and she was not making ends meet as the pandemic slowed the economy.
Smugglers took her through Mexico and to the Rio Grande river with a group of 10 after sunset on Sunday. The group then walked overnight for three hours to turn themselves over to Border Patrol agents, but they were returned through the pedestrian bridge that connects McAllen, Texas, to Reynosa, Mexico, in a matter of hours.