USA TODAY International Edition
Critics call tent cities for border kids ‘abhorrent’
Leaders in Texas decry federal plan for housing youth split from parents
AUSTIN, Texas – From El Paso to Abilene to San Angelo, local leaders and immigrant advocates questioned and decried a proposal last week that would house immigrant children in tent cities across Texas.
The first “soft-sided facilities,” as the government calls them, have already been erected in Tornillo, Texas, a border town about 40 miles southeast of El Paso, said Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services.
About 360 children will be placed in the air-conditioned units in the coming days, and more could be added in the future, he said.
However, state Rep. Cesar Blanco said the move is dehumanizing and tarnishes Texas’ tradition of welcoming immigrants.
Blanco, along with five other Democratic state lawmakers, sent a letter to the departments of Homeland Securi-
“A tent city is not a place for children to be. That’s counter to the values not just of border communities but America in general.”
Texas Rep. Cesar Blanco
ty and Health and Human Services this week, calling the idea of tent cities and separating families at the border “abhorrent and possibly illegal.”
“A tent city is not a place for children to be,” said Blanco, who represents El Paso and other stretches of the border. “That’s counter to the values not just of border communities but America in general.”
Overall, the Trump administration is considering using the controversial method to house between 1,000 and 5,000 children at different military bases around Texas.
Officials are evaluating Fort Bliss Army base just outside El Paso, Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo as potential sites.
The influx of unaccompanied minors largely stems from the administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy, which entails charging nearly everyone crossing the border without authorization with a federal misdemeanor. Because of that policy, under law, children entering the United States alongside adults fall under the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s care while those criminal cases are pursued. The agency is responsible for the care of 11,517 migrant children currently being held without a parent or guardian. An existing network of some 100 shelters in 17 states is at about 93 percent capacity, Wolfe said.
Backers of the policy say it will help stem the steady flow of illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border.
“Zero tolerance is necessary in this point and time,” said Jessica Vaughan, of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based nonprofit research institute that promotes stricter immigration controls. “It’s clear that the previous policies were not doing the trick to deter illegal entry.”
Recalling Arpaio’s ‘Tent City Jail’
But critics have denounced the policy that leads to separation of families as cruel and the prospect of tent cities as inhumane.
And it’s also reminding advocates of former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Tent City Jail” in Phoenix.
Civil rights advocates denounced Arpaio’s 2,000-bed tent city in South Phoenix as inhumane and humiliating for housing inmates in Arizona’s blistering 110-plus-degree heat.
His successor, Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, ordered the facility closed last year as Arpaio faced obstruction of justice charges and multimillion-dollar lawsuits alleging racial profiling of immigrants.
A federal judge found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt of court, but Trump pardoned the high-profile sheriff before his sentencing.
Christian Ramirez, a San Diegobased border region human rights advocate, said he remembers touring Arpaio’s tent city as an observer and feeling concerned at what he saw: sweltering tents and inmates humiliated by the sheriff’s department.
“That was an extreme I thought I would never see again,” Ramirez said. “And those were adults. The thought that we’re going to potentially put children in these things is just devastating.”
Detained kids trending younger
Melissa Lopez, executive director of the El Paso-based Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services, which offers legal screenings for unaccompanied minors, said her office has noticed a disturbing trend since the “zero tolerance” policy launched: younger children held in federal custody.
Whereas unaccompanied minors who arrive at the border by themselves tend to be between 13 and 16 years old, minors separated from their parents at the border are often younger than 10, she said.
The children are often confused as to why they were taken from their parents and desperate to reunite with them, Lopez said.
“The younger they are, the more difficulty they’ll have being detained and dealing with all that comes with detention,” she said.
It’s not the first time the government has used U.S. military bases to house migrant children.
In 2016, to accommodate a surge of unaccompanied minors, about 500 children were temporarily held at Fort Bliss’ Dona Ana Range Complex, near Chaparral, New Mexico.
But they came over the border unaccompanied, were not separated from parents, tended to be older and were held in permanent structures.
U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Republican who represents the area around Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, said he understood the administration needs to enforce immigration laws but questioned holding the minors on military bases.
“I am not convinced at this point that housing them in our military installations is the best short-term answer, especially if it harms regular base operations, crowds our service members and distracts from the mission of defense,” he said.
Blanco attended missile gunnery school at Fort Bliss while in the Navy and said housing immigrant youth in tents there would imperil the good relationship that part of Texas has enjoyed with Mexico for generations.
He also pointed to Arpaio’s fall from grace and ultimate conviction as a lesson for the Trump administration.
“Typically, this story has a negative ending for those who treat immigrants and treat children in this matter,” Blanco said.