Emergency Sites for Migrant Children Raising Safety Concerns - Voice of America

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MCALLEN, TEXAS - The U.S. government has stopped taking immigrant teenagers to a converted camp for oilfield workers in West Texas because of questions about the safety of emergency sites quickly being opened to hold children crossing the southern border.

The Associated Press has learned that the converted camp has faced multiple issues in the four days since the Biden administration opened it amid a scramble to find space for immigrant children. More than 10% of the camp's population has tested positive for COVID-19 and at least one child had to be hospitalized.

An official working at the Midland, Texas, site said most of the Red Cross volunteers staffing the site do not speak Spanish, even though the teenagers they care for are overwhelmingly from Central America. When the facility opened, there were not enough new clothes to give to teenagers who had been wearing the same shirts and pants for several days, the official said. There were also no case managers on site to begin processing the minors' release to family members elsewhere in the U.S.

Bringing in teenagers while still setting up basic services "was kind of like building a plane as it's taking off," said the official, who declined to be named because of government restrictions.

No plans for more

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notified local officials in Midland late Wednesday night that it had no plans to bring more teenagers to the site, according to an email seen by The Associated Press. There were still 485 youths at the site as of Wednesday, 53 of whom had tested positive for COVID-19.

The government on Wednesday brought around 200 teenagers to another emergency site at the downtown Dallas convention center, which could hold up to 3,000 minors. HHS spokesman Mark Weber said taking more teenagers to Midland was on "pause for now." HHS will also not open a facility for children at Moffett Federal Airfield near San Francisco, according to Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo.

Migrants who were caught trying to sneak into the United States and were deported eat near the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge point of entry into the U.S., March 18, 2021, in Reynosa, Mexico.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has been sharply criticized for its response to an increase in crossings of unaccompanied immigrant children. As roughly 4,500 children wait in Border Patrol facilities unequipped for long-term detention, with some sleeping on floors, HHS has rushed to open holding sites across the country and tried to expedite its processes for releasing children in custody. About 9,500 minors are in HHS custody.

In addition, the U.S. has seen a sharp increase in Central American families arriving at the border who are fleeing violence, poverty and the effects of a destructive hurricane. Biden has kept intact an emergency measure enacted by the Trump administration during the pandemic that allows the government to quickly expel them to Mexico, though families with young children are generally allowed to enter through South Texas.

The Biden administration is not expelling immigrant children unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Several hundred a day are crossing the border, going first to often-packed Border Patrol stations while they await placement in the HHS system.

Red Cross help

HHS has turned to the American Red Cross to care for teenagers in both Midland and Dallas, a departure from the standard practice of having paid, trained staff watch over youths. Red Cross volunteers sit outside portable trailers in Midland to monitor the teenagers staying inside. Staff from HHS and the U.S. Public Health Service are also at both sites.

Neither HHS nor the Red Cross would say whether the volunteers had to pass FBI fingerprint checks, which are more exhaustive than a commercial background check. Both agencies have declined repeated requests for interviews.

The waiver of those background checks at another HHS camp in Tornillo, Texas, in 2018 led to concerns that the government was endangering child welfare. HHS requires caregivers in its permanent facilities to pass an FBI fingerprint check, and the agency's inspector general found in 2018 that waiving background checks and not having enough mental health clinicians resulted in "serious safety and health vulnerabilities."

The official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity said there was not sufficient mental health care at the Midland camp for minors who typically have fled their countries of origin and undergone a traumatic journey into the country.

Dany Vargas Rodriguez, 10, of Honduras, plays with a toy car near the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge entry point into the U.S. after he and his family were caught trying to sneak into the U.S. and deported, March 18, 2021, in Reynosa, Mexico.

In a statement earlier this week, HHS said it was rushing to get children out of Border Patrol custody and that emergency sites "will provide a safer and less overcrowded environment where children are cared for and processed as quickly as possible."

The Red Cross says its volunteers in Midland and Dallas "have received intensive training in sheltering operations and COVID-19 safety," and that they had all undergone background checks. The agency declined to say how many hours of training each volunteer had received.

Republican U.S. Representative August Pfluger, who represents Midland, was allowed to visit the site soon after it opened and saw the portable units that serve as rooms for each teenager.

"It's a professional facility that was intended for workers," he said.

But Pfluger and other Midland officials said the Biden administration was not answering their questions or giving them assurance that officials would keep the surrounding community safe. HHS opened the Midland site without notifying some top local officials, who said many of their questions were not being answered.

Quick opening

The email HHS sent to local officials this week details the haste with which government officials opened the site. It says officials identified the camp on Friday and signed a contract Saturday. The first group of teenagers arrived Sunday night.

Leecia Welch, an attorney for the National Center for Youth Law, interviewed children last week who were detained at the Border Patrol's sprawling tent facility in Donna, Texas. Many of those children reported going days without a shower or being taken outside.

Welch noted that Biden "inherited a dismantled immigration system and the impact on children, in particular, is becoming increasingly dire."

But, she added, "Building more and more holding centers without services or case management is just trading one set of problems for another."

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