Lack of staff to care for unaccompanied minors 2:22
(CNN) -
The Fort Bliss shelter is more like a warehouse, according to people who have been there, with row upon row of cots stacked on top of each other, filling large white tents where hundreds of undocumented immigrant minors await. Now officials are talking about doubling that population, from 5,000 to 10,000 children, which could make an already difficult situation even worse.
Attorneys who have visited the facility described scenes of minors with little chore for CNN, some crying, others spending their time sleeping.
Some are hesitant to play outside in the Texas heat, not knowing when the next laundry shift will arrive.
Several have been there for more than a month, waiting for their next stop.
During the spring, the Biden Administration scrambled to remove a record number of immigrant minors from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holding facilities, which seem rather jails, to take them to shelters like this one in Fort Bliss.
Attorneys and advocates who visited the centers say they are better equipped.
But they are still concerned that the facilities do not meet all the needs of a particularly vulnerable population.
“Fort Bliss is emblematic of a myopic approach to cleaning [Customs and Border Protection] without adequately caring about restoring and expanding the [Office of Refugee Resettlement] shelter system.
We are storing more than 4,000 children in soft tents on a military base, ”said Leecia Welch, Senior Director of Legal Defense and Child Welfare at the National Center for Youth Law, who visited the center in late April and described a foul smell in the place.
Many migrant minors have been in US custody for weeks.
Now the Biden administration has to reunite them with their families
As of May 23, there were 18,187 minors at all US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) facilities, according to the latest government data.
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Using pop-up sites is also expensive.
The daily cost per retail is more than double that of the shelter program already established by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is approximately US $ 775 per day, compared to about US $ 290 per day, according to government data. .
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters Monday that the Fort Bliss facility, like other emergency centers, allowed the administration to quickly move minors out of CBP facilities. to a place that could better meet your needs.
He also contradicted concerns about conditions at the facility.
I walked through Fort Bliss.
I toured the accommodation area for boys and girls.
We keep boys and girls separate.
I didn't see any problem with the minors' clothing, ”Becerra said when asked about Fort Bliss on Monday.
Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, who visited Fort Bliss last Friday, told CNN that she had observed some improvements at the site, but maintained that deficiencies remained, such as lack of access to clean clothing and the permanence of the minors in place for more than 40 days.
'It is absolutely unacceptable.
No minor should be there for more than two weeks.
It should be just an emergency admission.
[…] It should only be a situation used as a transition, "Escobar said.
HHS has a licensed bed capacity of around 13,500 equipped with a multitude of services, such as education and recreation, but given the capacity constraints related to the pandemic, the Department has had to rely on temporary sites to house minors.
"We were flying the plane while we were building it," an administration official told CNN, referring to the need to adapt on the fly.
HHS is considering expanding its Fort Bliss site to its potential capacity of 10,000 beds, according to federal documents obtained by CNN.
Becerra said Monday that it is difficult to know what to expect, without knowing how many minors will arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming weeks, but accepted that the intake sites are not designed for minors to stay for long periods before being given to their families.
Escobar raised concerns about the size of Fort Bliss and length of stay with the HHS secretary and White House officials, who she said were receptive to what she called "constructive criticism."
“I understand that it is an emergency reception center.
I understand.
They have done the best they could with the resources they have, with the time they needed to get things up and running, but looking forward, we have to divide those mega-sites, "he said.
“It doesn't bother me that there are 10,000 or 5,000 minors in El Paso.
What bothers me is having them all located in a single mega-site.
Immigrant children are trapped in limbo as the Biden administration opens emergency shelters across the country
The pop-up facilities opened by HHS in recent months were the main subject of a call between members of the Hispanic group in Congress and Becerra last Thursday, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Members asked the secretary how the sites were selected, as well as how they could involve local providers, the source said.
Democratic Rep. Norma Torres of California, who participated in the informational meeting with Becerra, has visited four of the temporary facilities.
He described the sites as "much more humane" than border facilities, but noted that he visits the site in his district, located in the Pomona Fairplex, weekly to make sure conditions don't deteriorate.
When asked about conditions at Fort Bliss, Torres said he saw no problems during his visit.
“This is a fear that I have and that is why I visit the facilities here in my district every week.
I don't want to hear any story like this coming out of this facility in my district, "he told CNN.
Minors express thoughts of self-harm
Welch and a team of attorneys visited seven emergency shelters in recent weeks and interviewed more than 100 minors about the facility's conditions.
The team of lawyers had access to speak with the minors because they are monitoring the government's compliance with the Flores Agreement, a 1997 agreement that regulates the conditions under which US officials can detain immigrant minors.
Emerging facilities typically take the form of emergency shelters, offering basic necessities, but not providing other services, such as education and case management, to the hundreds of minors housed at the sites. Conditions in emergency reception centers can vary, and change regularly, but in some cases, the rapid pace at which the centers were established contributed to their shortcomings.
The minors reported that they did not have access to clean clothes, that they slept all day to pass the time and that they cried frequently. At Fort Bliss, which houses minors between the ages of 13 and 17, some minors chose not to play outside because they weren't sure when their clothes would be cleaned again, according to Welch, who added that the minors also reported thoughts of self-harm. . While touring the facility, a bunk in which two children were sitting collapsed, Welch recalled.
Some children have been abruptly transferred from Fort Bliss to other HHS facilities where they are placed in more restrictive settings "due to the alleged danger or risk of flight," said Neha Desai, director of immigration at the National Center for the Law of the United States. Juventud, who described those environments as less freedom of movement and greater security.
In one case, a minor was transferred on the basis of "frivolous and unsubstantiated gang allegations," and in another case, a minor was transferred for allegedly refusing medical treatment, while others were told that they were meeting with his family when they were actually being transferred, Desai explained.
In Houston, the National Association of Christian Churches, which had been helping house the minors, was abruptly shut down, shortly before lawyers prepared to visit the site.
This temporary shelter can accommodate 1,000 unaccompanied migrant minors in South Los Angeles
Welch and his team have since located more than a dozen girls who were at the scene.
The girls described fainting, a lack of food or inappropriate food, a lack of clean clothing, and restrictions in bathrooms that prohibited them from using them after 10 p.m.
“HHS is committed to ensuring the well-being of the children in our care.
We proactively closed the Erie and Houston facilities because they did not meet our standard of care and we are working tirelessly with contractors to ensure those standards are met at the sites we operate today, ”an HHS spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the site. established in Houston and another in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Dean Hoover, an attorney for the National Association of Christian Churches, declined to comment on the conditions.
A high price
One of the main challenges of temporary centers is the lack of case management, which is often integrated into the reception centers of the already established Office of Refugee Resettlement.
HHS awarded more than $ 268 million to a private company, Family Endeavors Inc., to assist in emergency shelters, although the award has a potential value of $ 579 million.
In signal of the continuing need for staff, the Office of Refugee Resettlement waived the requirement that youth care staff have a minimum of one year of experience in child welfare, unless required by the state in which it operates. the shelter, according to a notification obtained by CNN.
US to close 2 migrant detention centers 0:52
Two large Texas centers, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas and the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, will close in early June because their leases expire.
At the Dallas convention center, the space looks more like a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) emergency shelter than a traditional HHS shelter, with cots lined up in a large space.
There, some minors have spent weeks with little or no access to the outside.
More than 300 minors were at the Dallas convention center for more than 50 days, and more than 450 children were at the San Antonio facility for more than 40 days, Desai said.
United States immigration