Pomona: Biden White House official lauds Fairplex facility as ‘a model’

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra called the shelter for migrant children at Fairplex “a model” for other intake sites Friday after touring the emergency shelter in Pomona with area lawmakers.

Rep. Norma Torres, D-Pomona, and Los County Supervisor

Hilda Solis joined Becerra on the tour and in praising the shelter, which could remain open through the end of the year as children continue arriving alone at the U.S.-Mexican border.

“It is not easy to stand something up like this quickly, and do it right, but I think you can see that this is a place where kids can be

healthy and safe,” Becerra said outside the site Friday during a news conference.

The Pomona site was the second tour of a temporary intake facility for Becerra this week. Earlier, he visited a site at Fort Bliss in Texas, which Becerra said was considerably smaller than the Pomona site.

The number of children at Fairplex, which has the capacity to house about 2,500, has increased from 708 on June 18, to 1,381 as of Friday. The children at the facility are mostly teenagers, and more than 1,000 boys, according to The Associated Press, which was allowed to accompany lawmakers on the tour. Fewer than 300 were 12 and under.

To date, there have been 1,160 reunifications from the site and 63 children have been transferred to other facilities. The number of children served at the Pomona site to date is 2,605, according to HHS Regional Director Bonnie Preston.

Nearly half the children are from Guatemala, 30% from Honduras, 15% from El Salvador and 7% from other countries, including Nicaragua, Ecuador, Mexico, Belize, Peru, Venezuela and Cuba.

In addition, HHS said this week that children 12 years and older will be able to receive a coronavirus vaccine while at the shelter, which opened May 1.

Though plans to shut down some intake sites are underway, including in Long Beach and San Diego, there is no plan to shut down the Pomona site. It’s leased through the year, but Becerra indicated that decision would be based on the number of migrant children who cross into the country from the Southern border.

“Because we now have had experience in trying to bring these kids in, process them and care for them, we’re able to do this more and more efficiently,” he said Friday. “Over this last year, what we’re seeing is that we are far more efficient in moving the child from first encounter in the

United States to disposition and discharge into the hands of a responsible, vetted adult in the U.S.”

Migrant children are housed at intake sites until they can be placed with sponsors or reunited with relatives in the U.S. A majority of the children typically come with names and contact information in their pockets and tend to be reunified with parents in 1014 days, HHS officials have said.

Torres, who has made weekly visits to the Fairplex site, praised the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration for their efforts in overseeing the process and providing care for migrant children who’ve made treacherous journeys to the U.S.

“The leadership that you have shown by seeing the humanity first of the children who find themselves either dumped on our Southern border, either over the fence, or abandoned in the desert, is saving their lives every single day,” Torres said.

Support for the migrant shelter has been seen throughout the community and region, Solis said Friday. Lawmakers have visited multiple times in recent months and local organizations have had fundraisers to support the efforts.

“A lot of people have sympathy, not just for what’s going on here, but for the future of these children,” Solis said. “So we all have hope.”