The drama of immigrant children in the US does not yield 1:01
(CNN) -
Earlier this month, on one side of the Dallas Convention Center, hundreds of teens gathered for a high school volleyball tournament.
There were coaches, spectators, and corporate sponsors.
The sounds of their cheers were muffled but audible on the other side of the building, in a temporary shelter for hundreds of other minors, all of them unaccompanied immigrant children, who recently crossed the southern US border and now face an uncertain future. .
The Dallas site is one of more than a dozen temporary shelters that the Biden administration frantically set up to accommodate the record number of unaccompanied minors now arriving at the southern United States border.
Details that have emerged in recent weeks reveal the behind-the-scenes race to establish the sites, recruit volunteers and staff, and then relocate the children with a sponsor, such as a parent or relative, to the United States while they continue with their legal paperwork. immigration.
Officials relied on ordinary spaces, such as convention centers, in the fight to find adequate shelter for children, and while the sites are better than Border Patrol facilities, which are similar to prisons, they have also had problems.
In one case, an emergency intake site only had about two dozen staff members to supervise more than 2,000 children, according to a source familiar with the site, underscoring the rapid pace at which the sites were being lifted as the officials were trying to obtain resources.
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The growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, many of whom were fleeing deteriorating conditions in their home countries, presented an immediate challenge to the Biden administration, as officials rushed to alleviate overcrowding at border facilities.
Inside the White House, part of the internal blame for the situation has fallen on Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who many of Biden's advisers believe has not addressed the matter urgently. Senior White House officials have repeatedly lobbied the Health Department in meetings to identify and establish facilities to house migrant children more quickly, according to people familiar with the conversations.
Initially, the emerging facilities took the form of emergency shelters, offering basic needs but falling short of providing other services, such as education and case management, to the hundreds of children housed at the sites.
In these conditions, the wait to reunite with the family in the United States or to be transferred to a long-term shelter, equipped with more resources, took its toll.
“At first, we saw the children, drawing, playing cards, making soccer balls out of what they could find, and keeping busy.
There was a lot less of that this week, ”said Michelle Sáenz Rodríguez, a Dallas-based immigration attorney who volunteered at the city's convention center.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is in charge of the care of migrant children, has recognized the limited nature of these temporary sites, saying in a statement that its intention is "initially to provide services that can save lives of unaccompanied children that are in accordance with the best practices / standards in response to emergencies in disasters or other humanitarian situations: bedrooms, meals, toiletries, laundry and access to clean and comfortable medical services.
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In the past month, the department doubled its capacity by adding more than 14,000 emergency admission shelter beds, according to Mark Weber, a spokesman for HHS.
Conditions at emergency intake sites may vary and change regularly.
Lawyers and advocates say that, in some cases, the sites have been better equipped over time.
But the administration still faces challenges in its attempt to expand bed capacity.
Becerra told the House Appropriations subcommittee this month that serving the more than 21,000 unaccompanied children now in HHS custody has become "more exhausting, more difficult, because the spaces that we are finding they are less and less ».
The department has also had trouble getting volunteers to centers where minors are housed, despite the fact that they begged employees for weeks, an internal call official told CNN.
Even once they are there, some who chose to volunteer have returned home early, this official said.
Senior officials have warned would-be volunteers about stressful working conditions faced by those who volunteer, such as scenarios where there are few or no established workspaces and 12-hour standing shifts, according to the source.
In a call, officials put it bluntly: volunteering is not going on vacation.
HHS has a licensed bed capacity of about 13,500 equipped with a wide variety of services, such as education and recreation, to accommodate children crossing the United States-Mexico border alone, until they can be relocated with a sponsor. , as a parent or relative, in the United States. But over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the Department was operating with reduced capacity, surprising the incoming Biden administration when the number of minors crossing the southern US border increased.
“When we saw that the numbers increased, the White House began to convene an inter-agency process […] What we focused on, from the beginning, is that we need more beds, we need staff and services to meet the needs of children, we need to increase this performance, "said a White House official, adding that the previous administration did not take precautionary measures to prepare for an influx at the border.
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Help needed to work with immigrant children
Since then, the administration has taken a series of steps to shore up additional resources and staff.
The HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) posted a job for a Field Program Specialist that is open to "current federal employees of any agency at any grade" and is described as a deployment for " support ORR in facilities for unaccompanied children ”.
The staff shortage has become a point of tension between HHS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
"They are fighting to meet the needs of the mission," said a Homeland Security official, adding that there have been tense conversations with the Department as DHS steps in to help with processing and volunteers.
More than 300 employees of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a DHS agency, are assisting with case management, the process of gathering a child's details, and helping you meet with a sponsor in the U.S. ., according to HHS.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, also under DHS, is providing technical assistance to expand bed capacity and support to establish emergency landing sites "to provide immediate decompression" of border facilities, according to a spokesperson for the agency.
As of April 21, 95 FEMA staff members have been deployed to sites in Texas, California, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the spokesperson added.
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The high cost of shelters
Using pop-up sites is expensive.
The Biden administration is spending at least $ 62 million a week to care for unaccompanied migrant children in HHS custody, according to government data.
One of the main challenges in emerging sites is the lack of case management, generally built into the already established ORR shelters.
The consequence: children stay longer in shelters and, as a result, a continued need to increase bed capacity.
“They are starting with little or nothing rather than case management.
That's a problem because children need the relationship that they would have with a case manager and because the way that children can reach out to a parent or other sponsor is to have a case manager start that process, ”Greenberg said.
Lindsay Gray, an Austin-based immigration attorney and founder of the nonprofit Vecina, started a family reunification project in conjunction with Project Lifeline, to help parents and family members get paperwork up and running in hopes of reducing the reunification time.
“We are seeing a significant delay in the assignment of case managers.
If they can't even contact a sponsor for the paperwork they need until a child has been detained for five weeks, that's a significant delay, ”Gray said.
"Its very stressful.
Many sponsors call and have not heard from the child in several days and do not know where they are and just want help and safety, "he added.
The average length of stay is 31 days, according to HHS.
ORR says the process of identifying parents or relatives living in the U.S. has begun while the children are in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). ). But the need for case managers persists. In a request published last week, HHS called in case managers to work at the emergency sites.
“Obviously, we have made tremendous progress in reducing children's time in custody at CBP facilities and in opening these emergency intake centers.
But, obviously, what we want to move forward is to make sure that all children are reunited with family members in the United States first, but second, while they wait to reunite, they are in the safest shelter possible, "said Andrea Flores, Director of Cross-Border Security of the National Security Council.
- CNN's Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
United States Mexico border