By Nomaan Merchant - The Associated Press
HOUSTON— The Administration chaired by Joe Biden is not requiring the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to
fingerprint
the criminal records of caregivers of thousands of migrant children and adolescents, while the Government is rapidly expanding the sites to house them.
Child welfare experts say they are
alarmed
and assure that this compromises the
safety
of minors.
In the rush to get children out of crowded Border Patrol facilities, the president's team is turning to solutions used by previous administrations: tent camps, convention centers and other large facilities operated by private contractors and funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In March alone, the Administration announced that it will open
eight new emergency sites
in the southwest of the country and add
15,000 new beds
, more than double the number of the existing system.
These emergency sites do not need to be approved by state authorities and do not have to provide the same services as permanent HHS facilities.
They also cost a lot more: an estimated $ 775 a day per child.
['Stay in Mexico' is over but the agonizing wait continues for thousands of immigrants]
In order to recruit personnel for these facilities quickly,
the Biden Administration has waived investigative procedures designed to protect minors from potential dangers
.
Staff and volunteers who directly serve children at the new emergency sites
do not have to undergo fingerprint checks
by the FBI, which uses criminal databases not accessible to the public and can detect if someone has changed their name. or you are using a false identity.
[HHS told our sister network NBC News that direct child care personnel are being supervised by "federal personnel" or "personnel who have passed federal fingerprint-based background check requirements."
In addition, "volunteer direct care and child welfare staff must pass public records criminal background checks," he added. In conclusion, the standards of care for children used are those that apply "in an emergency response environment," the agency explained.]
Public record checks generally take less time, but are dependent on the subject providing the true information.
The San Diego Convention Center houses 500 migrant girls.
His arrival generates protests
March 27, 202101: 45
The agency says those who provide direct care to minor migrants are supervised by federal employees or others who have passed fingerprint-based background checks.
"In emergency facilities, HHS is implementing the standards of care used for children in an emergency response setting," the agency said.
During the administration of former President Donald Trump, HHS did not ensure for months that workers at a large camp in Tornillo, Texas, were subjected to fingerprint examinations by the FBI.
A 2018 Associated Press investigation also found that staff at another camp in Homestead, Florida, failed to conduct routine examinations to rule out allegations of child abuse or neglect.
[Tragedy on the Rio Grande: “I tried in a thousand ways to swim and swim. And yes I could swim, but I took her out dead "]
The HHS inspector general cautioned at the time that FBI fingerprint checks "provide unique protection" over most business background checks that only search for each person's name.
"While the various background checks could identify some prior criminal convictions or sex offenses, these checks were not as extensive as the FBI fingerprint background checks," the inspector general found.
Laura Nodolf, a district attorney for Midland, Texas, where HHS opened an emergency site this month, said that
without fingerprint checks, "we really don't know who the person is providing direct care"
(to minors) .
"That means placing children in the care of potentially a
sex offender
," Nodolf said.
"They are putting these children in a position to become
potential victims
."
A worrying increase in the arrival of unaccompanied minors is expected
March 28, 202100: 51
Dr. Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist who works as executive director of the immigration advocacy group Every Last One, noted that HHS requires fingerprint checks of family members seeking to foster children as part of an investigative process that takes more 30 days on average.
"Failure to verify the fingerprints of front-line personnel exposes vulnerable migrant children to
significant danger of physical and sexual abuse
," he said.
The government has
18,000 children and adolescents
in its custody
, a number that has increased almost daily in recent weeks.
Biden continues to expel most adults and many families who cross the border but has refused to return unaccompanied immigrant children, which changed last year after a now-suspended federal court order.
More than 5,000 youth are in custody at the border, many of them in a tent in South Texas with limited space, food and access to the outdoors.
But the Border Patrol is detaining hundreds more minors than HHS releases every day (a difference of 325, on Thursday alone).
At the downtown Dallas convention hall, one of HHS's emergency sites, nearly all of its 2,300 beds were filled just a week after it opened this month.
[In pictures: this is how migrants are crowded into temporary Border Patrol facilities in Texas]
Advocates for children say that instead of opening more unlicensed emergency facilities, the Administration should
speed up
the release of children with their sponsors, especially when
40% of young people in custody have a father in the country. ready to take with you
.
HHS has tried to speed up the processing of minors in recent weeks, allowing some youth to be placed with their parents while fingerprint checks are pending and authorizing the use of government funds to pay for airfare when a child is released.
We visit the Guatemalan village from where the migrant whose 9-year-old daughter drowned in the Rio Grande left for the United States.
March 27, 202101: 37
Ana, the mother of a 17-year-old teenager detained in Dallas, told the AP that her son fled gangs trying to recruit him in El Salvador and hoped to meet her in Virginia.
After an eight-day trip, the teen crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on March 9.
Eight days passed before the authorities told him they had him in custody.
She received a 10-minute call from her son on March 20 after he was taken to the Dallas facility.
It was the first time I had spoken to him since he entered the country.
She says she has repeatedly called the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement to ask if they can release him to her family, but they have refused, saying they have to process her case.
Meanwhile, the woman is ready to present documentation that proves that she is his mother and is in a position to assume custody.
"I don't understand why they are making it so difficult," said Ana, who is not being identified by her last name to protect her son's privacy.
"I know we are in a pandemic, but maybe I think it is that they are delayed, that maybe there are a lot of people there," he added.
[The Biden Administration expects migrant child crossings to skyrocket in April and May: more than 40,000 may arrive]
The Tornillo and Homestead centers were harshly criticized by Democrats and child welfare experts, who warned of the possible trauma of detaining thousands of teens without proper care.
American Red Cross volunteers provided care at the first two HHS emergency sites, a repurposed oil worker camp in Midland, Texas, and the Dallas Convention Center.
The support of these volunteers is now
gradually
running
out.
For several days, the Red Cross and HHS refused to acknowledge that the volunteers were not subjected to fingerprint checks by the FBI.
The Red Cross first said that all of its volunteers underwent background checks when they joined the group.
On Tuesday, the group said it was "refreshing" checks on some 300 volunteers sent to care for the children and had found no new red flags.
HHS spokesman Mark Weber said he could not yet identify which companies or groups will step in now to care for the children.
In mid-March, the Department asked contractors to submit bids to provide child care and transportation.
Such are the unsanitary camps in Mexico where migrants wait to enter the United States.
March 27, 202101: 44
Leecia Welch, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, a nonprofit organization that oversees the treatment of immigrant children, said attorneys were paying "a lot of attention to whether this temporary suspension (of verifications) becomes an operational practice. standard".
"Given the urgency of the current shelter crisis,
families deserve the same flexibility
as for-profit businesses that contract with the federal government," he said.
Safety concerns have already been raised about Camp Midland.
An official who worked there noticed a
lack of new clothes
and social workers when the teens initially arrived, and state regulators warned last week that the water at the site might not be safe, forcing US authorities to give them bottles to drink. drink to teenagers, until they could manage the delivery of water.
Michelle Sáenz-Rodríguez, an immigration attorney working in Dallas, described the Dallas convention center as like a
barracks
, but "very welcoming."
She visited the center in her early days as a volunteer with the Catholic Charities group and said cots have been placed in a dance hall for more than 2,000 children, in socially distanced lines.
After being taken by bus to the site, the children are provided clean clothes, a pillow, a blanket and are tested for COVID-19, Saenz-Rodríguez said.
She saw them last week sitting at the tables together, talking and playing cards.
Most did not understand why they had been brought to Dallas
or what would happen to them, he said.
“His number one question is'
How long will we be here?
What will happen to us?
'”Saenz-Rodríguez said.
AP reporter Jake Bleiberg contributed to this report from Dallas.
With information from NBC News.