Kids begin to arrive at Long Beach convention center

Beds for young girls: The facility is set to shelter up to 1,000 youngsters until family member or sponsor is found

The first group of migrant children arrived at the Long Beach convention center Thursday, making it the second shelters for immigrant minors to open in Southern California amid an ongoing crisis at the southern border.

The center will house about 1,000 migrant children, mostly young girls ages 5 and up. That may include pairs or groups of siblings, but the facility will not be used specifically for siblings found at the border

together, as officials said earlier this month.

The Department of Health and Human Services is running the shelter and officials’ goal is for kids to spend seven to 10 days in the facility before being placed with a family member or sponsor, Mayor Robert Garcia said, though some cases are more complex and may take longer.

“The goal here,” he said, “is quick reunification.”

The first group to arrive was relatively small — fewer than 15, according to a spokesman, but officials expected up to 150 to arrive Thursday evening.

Upon arrival, the children will receive health screenings for communicable diseases and allergies, among other potential concerns, Cmdr. Nick Munoz of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response said.

HHS officials gave a tour of the convention center Thursday — prior to the children arriving — during which local elected representatives got a glimpse at how the facility is set up.

Officials were still wrapping up construction and final preparations at the center, where 12 doctors from UCLA were expected to provide the health screenings, Munoz said; his agency also has a nine-person team on hand.

To prevent a coronavirus outbreak, all children will be tested upon arrival and all kids, staff and volunteers will be tested every three days. Children who test positive will be moved to a designated area for quarantine and to receive appropriate medical care from UCLA Health. The kids will not, however, receive COVID-19 vaccinations at the site, even if they are old enough to be eligible. Instead, medical staff will focus on handling pediatric immunizations, which include shots like the MMR vaccine, which prevents measles, mumps and rubella.

How many people will staff the convention center wasn’t immediately known.

But Bonnie Preston, acting regional director of HHS’s Region 9, said during a briefing following the tour that there likely will be about one youth care worker for every five younger kids and one youth care worker for every eight older kids. The ratio of case management workers, she said, would be different, but she didn’t say what that ratio would be.

The center, though, is set up to accommodate all of the children’s needs, officials said.

Conference rooms will be used as classrooms with cohorts of 30 children receiving lessons together. The children would get at least three hours of lessons per day, Preston said.

In Exhibit Hall B, pods of 30 cots each had been set up, separated by beige curtains. In one pod, the cots had been made up with white sheets, a pillow and a folded blanket. Some of the cots had books on them, as well as school supplies and backpacks with two pairs of shoes underneath.

Toward the end of the hall, there was a lounge area with several sofas and tables. The north end had rows of dining tables and chairs.

Projectors displayed pink butterflies onto the north wall.

“We want to make the area warm and welcoming for the children,” said Charlie Beirne, general manager of the convention center. “They’re coming in through some traumatic experiences.”

The recreation area, on large gray carpets, included soccer nets, two large Jenga sets and boards for beanbag toss. Two big screen televisions are set up for both movies and video games. Tables covered with snacks sat across the hall.

Outside that hall, a recreation area was being outfitted with turf, allowing the children to play outdoors, Garcia said. That area also included trailers with showers, with a not-yet-determined schedule of how many times a week the children will bathe.

The children will have multiple hours of recreation time set aside per day, Preston said.

As they arrive, the children will be grouped in pods of 30, each led by a staff member who will guide them during various scheduled activities each day, Preston said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was set to provide advisors on mask-wearing for the youth, Preston said.

Rep. Alan Lowenthal, DLong Beach, joined the Thursday tour and said during the briefing that followed that he was proud of the site, particularly after having toured detention facilities along the border a few times in prior presidential administrations.

“They were no place for” adults, let alone children, he said. “They were cramped together. They were in cages.”

Unlike in those facilities, Lowenthal said, the convention center has been transformed into a place where kids can feel welcome and will be treated humanely.

“I’ve never been more proud of my city than I am today,” he said, “with what it’s doing to step up in this crisis.”

While the federal government is operating the facility, local organizations and community members will be able to volunteer and provide services there. Representatives of some groups that will participate, such as Centro CHA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and the Long Beach Ministers Alliance, also attended the tour and shared their thoughts.

“I’m really glad to say that this is not a political matter,” LBMA President Gregory Sanders said. “This is really the truest form of Christian expressions of compassion. If you ever want to see Christian compassion, I believe I just witnessed that today.”

The Long Beach City Council earlier this month OK’d letting the federal government use the center as a temporary shelter for kids found at the southern border without a parent.

HHS has signed a contract, but that document and its terms — including how much rent the federal government is paying — has not yet been announced. Officials, though, said Thursday that they were committed to providing that information soon.

The convention center has not been able to hold events for the last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, but that’s set to change this fall. City officials have said the shelter will close Aug. 2 at the latest, which will allow conventions that have already been planned to move forward.

The mass vaccination site in the convention center parking lot also will not be impacted by the shelter’s operations.

The federal government’s request to use the site as a temporary shelter came as a surge of unaccompanied minors, fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, have sought to cross the border. Border authorities encountered nearly 19,000 children without a parent in March, an all-time monthly high.

Long Beach isn’t the only city in the region that’s been tapped to help with the crisis; a migrant shelter in San Diego is currently operating for about 500 teen girls. A third shelter is expected to eventually come online at Fairplex in Pomona.

Using the Long Beach convention center for a humanitarian cause was an easy decision to make, city officials have said.

For Garcia, who immigrated to the U.S. from Peru when he was a child, the decision also was personal.

“When I came to the United States, I was 5 years-old — under very different circumstances, but still poor and still without a lot of support here in the United States,” he said. “So I feel, for me, this is very personal, that each child is welcomed.”

Garcia was “very grateful that there were welcoming Americans and welcoming people when I arrived with my family that showed us kindness and love,” the mayor said.

Garcia is glad, he said, that Long Beach is set to pay that kindness forward.

“It has been emotional for me,” Garcia said, “and I’m just grateful to HHS for their work and their work in the future.”