In a major step forward for children seeking asylum and their advocates, the Biden administration will be shutting down six “emergency” camps in California and Texas beginning in mid-July, CBS News reports. While officials announced that the population at the notorious Fort Bliss camp near El Paso has dropped over 40%, it will continue to remain open for now.
“Migrant children need to be reunited with their families in the US as quickly and as safely as possible,” tweeted Families Belong Together, a project of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “While the shelter closures give us hope that this is happening, conditions in the ones that will remain are still appalling.”
Families Belong Together is pointing to conditions at the notorious Fort Bliss site, the largest of the Biden administration’s unlicensed, temporary camps. Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Xavier Becerra visited the site this week, following alarming reports that children there had grown so despondent, some were put on 24-hour watch to ensure they don’t harm themselves. “Workers at the site said they were even instructed to remove the metal nose clips from N95 face masks,” another CBS News report said last week.
At time of that report’s publishing, as many as 100 children had been held at the camp for at least two months, “with no updates on their release.” Carlos Holguín, a Flores Agreement advocate and attorney, likened the Fort Bliss camp to "industrial scale detention.” He told CBS News that children he interviewed there "were close to their breaking points." In its report, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas noted that while it was allowed to tour the site in April and May, “we were not allowed to speak to children to get a full view of their experience.”
The Associated Press (AP) reports that following his visit Monday, Becerra said that 790 boys remained at the site. “All the girls were reunited either with relatives in the U.S. or a sponsor such as a family friend or sent to licensed facilities, which have a higher standard of care, according to the agency responsible for caring for migrant children,” the report said. The 790 boys at Fort Bliss is down from a high of 4,800 children in May. The site has capacity to hold as many as 10,000 kids. The HHS system currently has 14,200 children under its watch, the AP said. Per CBS News, more than 40% of kids in HHS custody are being held in temporary camps.
The Biden administration had opened these temporary sites as part an urgent effort to keep children out of harmful Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities. Due to capacity limits at HHS-licensed facilities, thousands of kids had been held past the legal limit of 72 hours in these border facilities, which Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has publicly said “is no place for a child.” They aren’t really suitable for adults, either.
But also importantly, advocates like Japanese American-led Tsuru for Solidarity have argued against opening these large-scale camps, saying that “when migrant children cannot be immediately reunited with their families, the appropriate and humane setting is a small-scale, home-like environment where they receive care and supervision from licensed child welfare professionals.” Large camps “are inherently traumatizing for children, no matter how clean it is or how many recreation activities the authorities may schedule inside,” the group continued, and child welfare experts have agreed.
“Migrant children need to be reunited with their families in the US as quickly and as safely as possible,” tweeted Families Belong Together, a project of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “While the shelter closures give us hope that this is happening, conditions in the ones that will remain are still appalling.”
Families Belong Together is pointing to conditions at the notorious Fort Bliss site, the largest of the Biden administration’s unlicensed, temporary camps. Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Xavier Becerra visited the site this week, following alarming reports that children there had grown so despondent, some were put on 24-hour watch to ensure they don’t harm themselves. “Workers at the site said they were even instructed to remove the metal nose clips from N95 face masks,” another CBS News report said last week.
At time of that report’s publishing, as many as 100 children had been held at the camp for at least two months, “with no updates on their release.” Carlos Holguín, a Flores Agreement advocate and attorney, likened the Fort Bliss camp to "industrial scale detention.” He told CBS News that children he interviewed there "were close to their breaking points." In its report, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas noted that while it was allowed to tour the site in April and May, “we were not allowed to speak to children to get a full view of their experience.”
The Associated Press (AP) reports that following his visit Monday, Becerra said that 790 boys remained at the site. “All the girls were reunited either with relatives in the U.S. or a sponsor such as a family friend or sent to licensed facilities, which have a higher standard of care, according to the agency responsible for caring for migrant children,” the report said. The 790 boys at Fort Bliss is down from a high of 4,800 children in May. The site has capacity to hold as many as 10,000 kids. The HHS system currently has 14,200 children under its watch, the AP said. Per CBS News, more than 40% of kids in HHS custody are being held in temporary camps.
The Biden administration had opened these temporary sites as part an urgent effort to keep children out of harmful Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities. Due to capacity limits at HHS-licensed facilities, thousands of kids had been held past the legal limit of 72 hours in these border facilities, which Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has publicly said “is no place for a child.” They aren’t really suitable for adults, either.
But also importantly, advocates like Japanese American-led Tsuru for Solidarity have argued against opening these large-scale camps, saying that “when migrant children cannot be immediately reunited with their families, the appropriate and humane setting is a small-scale, home-like environment where they receive care and supervision from licensed child welfare professionals.” Large camps “are inherently traumatizing for children, no matter how clean it is or how many recreation activities the authorities may schedule inside,” the group continued, and child welfare experts have agreed.