Lamont: Plans on hold to bring migrant children to former prison
Biden administration seeking space for thousands kept in detention centers at Texas border after fleeing as refugees from Central American countries
Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday there will be no immediate moves to bring hundreds of migrant children to a former juvenile prison in Middletown.
“At this point, I think the White House said, ‘Let’s take a pause. I think we’re taking care of these kids elsewhere right now but we really appreciate the state of Connecticut to reach out and give us some options,’ ” Lamont told reporters Thursday.
Asked if there would be no children being relocated to Middletown for the foreseeable future, Lamont said, “That’s right. They said they’re all set for now.”
Lamont’s chief of staff, Paul
Mounds Jr., had been talking to White House staff as recently as Wednesday night to get the latest updates on Connecticut’s potential plans for moving children to the former prison. Lamont was personally asked by Vice President Kamala Harris recently if Connecticut could provide space for some of the thousands of children who are being kept in detention centers along the Texas border after fleeing as refugees from their Central American countries. Their numbers have increased as the federal government is facing a border crisis.
The initial discussion was for Connecticut to potentially provide temporary housing for 90 days, but that could be extended “for a few hundred kids,” Lamont had said.
He took a tour recently of the now-closed Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a controversial juvenile jail that was opened by Gov. John G. Rowland in 2001 and closed in 2018 by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
The $57 million, highly secure facility housed troubled juveniles at a 24-hour complex that has classrooms, food service, medical facilities and space for indoor and outdoor student recreation.
But the revelation that the state planned to house migrant children at a former juvenile jail didn’t sit well with some officials in Middletown, including Mayor Ben Florsheim.
“Taking kids out of cages in the
Southwest and moving them into cages in the Northeast is not an immigration policy,” Florsheim told WVIT-TV, NBC Connecticut. “This is a literal decommissioned child prison. It’s a detention facility.
Advocacy groups including immigrant rights organizations also opposed the move.
The Biden administration is facing a growing immigration crisis and has kept children at detention centers such as one in Donna, Texas, that is operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. More than 4,000 children have been kept in an overcrowded tent at times under conditions that have been sharply criticized.
In 2014, Malloy rejected a request from the federal government that would have used the underutilized, sprawling, 1,600acre Southbury Training School complex to shelter as many as 2,000 migrant children from Central America. Malloy was criticized at the time by some who believed that the state should help children and the federal government during an international crisis.
Before it closed, the Middletown facility handled about 250 male youths who came into the system through the state Department of Children ”and Families. Officials said they suffered from issues such as substance abuse, mental illness, trauma, dysfunctional families and chronic truancy. They would often stay in Middletown for six months before being transferred to specialized programs.
Lamont had said all along that the final decision would be made by the Biden administration.
“We’re going to give them a recommendation ... once we’ve had a chance to talk to a few more people,’’ Lamont said last week. “Then the timing is up to them.’’