According to declarations filed with a federal judge overseeing custody conditions for immigrant teenagers, more than 700 children spent at least three weeks at unlicensed government sites in mid-July. Advocates argue that children should be quickly released to their families in the U.S., or transferred to a licensed facility.
One of the filings showed that a 16-year old Salvadoran boy claimed children were given raw meat. The boy, who claimed he spoke with both his parents every week, took over a month to be released to his Georgia father.
“When I get up in the morning, I feel very frustrated. “Of all the youth I arrived with, I am alone,” the boy declared. “I’d like to be with my dad right away.”
The emergency sites were created by the Biden administration in March to alleviate dangerous overcrowding of border stations. They were intended to be temporary. However, many people wonder if that is still true months later.
Children crossing the border without an adult in July were almost at the same level as in March, despite the heat.
U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee said, “If you have three people at your dinner party and there are 30,000 people there, it’s going to be a problem.” She oversees the decades-old settlement that governs custody arrangements for the children.
“The infrastructure is not ready for the tens of thousand of people who will be coming in simultaneously, so somehow the paradigm must shift to accommodate these kinds of numbers.”
U.S. border officials reported 18,000 encounters in July with unaccompanied immigrant kids, an increase of 24% over a month prior. This is despite the fact that crossings are expected to slow in summer, July was the busiest month for the Biden administration at the border.
A government report from early August stated that the Department of Health and Human Services had almost 15,000 children under its care, but only 11,000 shelter beds for immigrant children. Although large-scale facilities are possible to fill this gap, advocates suggested that the government should expand licensed shelters so children have access to case workers, recreation, and six hours of education each weekday.
The Department of Health and Human Services has the responsibility of caring for the children while they wait for an immigration judge’s decision on whether they are allowed to stay legally in the United States. The agency maintains a large network of state-licensed shelters, which could be expanded. There is also ample space in foster care programs, as well as large, so-called “influx care facilities” that meet specific standards for staffing. However, the agency continues to look to these emergency locations.
Advocates claim that the emergency intake centers do not meet the agency’s standards. They are expensive and ineffective, particularly for children who have already experienced the trauma of moving north and leaving their homes.
There are many other ways to do it. They just stick their heads in the sand, acting like emergency intake sites are the only option, which is not true,” Leecia Welch, the senior director of legal advocacy at the National Center for Youth Law, said. She was also one of the attorneys representing the children in the federal court case. It’s not okay to start at the most horrifying and worse is worse.
Advocates asked Gee for an order to require the administration to adhere to standards at emergency sites, just as it does for its influx-care facilities. These also aim to reduce an increase in arrivals. A Carrizo Springs, Texas facility that can house up to 1,000 children, must have at least one counseling session per week and a care worker available for eight of them while they are awake. October 1 is the date for a hearing on this issue.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services stated that licensed youth shelters are at capacity and that emergency intake sites provide crucial care to children waiting to be placed with their parents or other sponsors. According to the spokesperson, the agency is committed to caring for these children and is expanding the number of licensed sites.
Temporary facilities were also opened by the Trump and Obama administrations when there was an increase in border crossings. However, the numbers weren’t as high as those seen by the Biden administration.
Trump’s administration closed the Southwest border to asylum seekers as a pandemic-related move, effectively turning away many immigrants. Then, in November, a federal judge ordered the administration to stop expelling unaccompanied children under the policy.
Two months later, President Joe Biden was elected and the number of children seeking asylum began to increase. Due to coronavirus concerns shelters for immigrant youth continued to operate at a reduced capacity, and the Department of Health and Human Services suddenly found itself short of space.
The average stay at emergency intake sites has decreased in recent months. In response, the Department of Health and Human Services closed some of the sites and improved conditions at others. According to court declarations, some children tried to escape Fort Bliss Army Base in Texas, the largest government emergency facility.
Some children were taken to New York’s more restrictive youth shelter after being caught. The 16-year old Honduran boy said it was a big improvement because they were able to eat pizza and other healthy food, instead of the bloody chicken at the Army base. There was also a class, but there wasn’t one before.
“If anything it paid off to behave,” the teen declared. He would spend the day at Fort Bliss feeling like an inmate and would then go to bed. “I am so thankful that I tried escape from that hellhole. It was terrible, and I couldn’t sleep.”
Alex Nowrasteh is the director of immigration studies at libertarian Cato Institute. He believes that U.S. policies are making matters worse. He believes that parents send their children to the border with the knowledge that they are more likely to get in by themselves than with a relative.
Biden maintained the Trump administration’s public health rules that barred asylum seekers from crossing the border. However, he allowed children to cross the border alone.
He said that if the U.S. allowed families applied to enter the country legally authorities could manage the flows and eliminate the need for emergency shelters.
Nowrasteh stated that “we are still in an emergency — there are still high numbers — but this is absolutely not the way to handle it.” “We can process huge numbers of asylum applications if we wish to. It’s up to the government whether they want to.
