Longer coverage in the Washington Post article itself. Extremely sad to read:
The wording "migrant facility for children" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Government officials say the camp is needed because facilities for migrant children have had to cut capacity by nearly half because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has been inching up, with January reporting the highest total — more than 5,700 apprehensions — for that month in recent years.
But immigration lawyers and advocates question why the Biden administration would choose to reopen a Trump-era facility that was the source of protests and controversy. From the "tent city" in Tornillo, Tex., to a sprawling for-profit facility in Homestead, Fla., emergency shelters have been criticized by advocates for immigrants, lawyers and human rights activists over their conditions, cost and lack of transparency in their operations.
"It's unnecessary, it's costly, and it goes absolutely against everything [President] Biden promised he was going to do," said Linda Brandmiller, a San Antonio-based immigration lawyer who represents unaccompanied minors. "It's a step backward, is what it is. It's a huge step backward."
During the campaign, Biden pledged to undo former president Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies. In his first month in office, Biden signed several executive orders reversing many of those policies. Last week, he and House Democrats introduced a plan that would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. The administration also reversed some of Trump's expulsion practices by accepting unaccompanied children into the country, a change that also is contributing to an increase of minors in government facilities, officials said.
"When I read they were opening again, I cried," said Rosey Abuabara, a San Antonio community activist who was arrested for protesting outside the Carrizo camp in 2019. "I consoled myself with the fact that it was considered the Cadillac of [migrant child] centers, but I don't have any hope that Biden is going to make it better."
She said despite what she's heard about the camp's amenities, the immense cost and scale of the Office of Refugee Resettlement operations points to a government program that profits from holding migrant children, who are shepherded in unmarked vans to remote areas with what she describes as little oversight.
Brandmiller, the lawyer, said people should take note of how these emergency shelters are often located in far-flung locations away from public view.
"This is done deliberately to shelve these children in places that are not only not readily accessible, but not accessible at all to anyone who cares about the quality of life of these kids, and whether or not they comply with the federal law," she said, referring to the Flores Settlement Agreement, which recommends children not stay in unlicensed facilities for longer than 20 days. [...]
But Brandmiller is worried this is the latest government tactic to deter immigrants from seeking refuge in the United States. She said the Biden administration should not be reviving old systems but looking for new solutions.
"If they were actually addressing the issues that are endemic in a system that has been established for many years and is flawed, if they were addressing the inadequacies instead of creating a parallel jail for kids, I would have more hope," she said.
The wording "migrant facility for children" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
