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US reopens Trump-era housing facilities for unaccompanied migrant children

Lauren Keenan, Anchor/Reporter

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President Joe Biden is reopening a second Trump-era border facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas. It’s purpose is to house unaccompanied migrant children, and it represents a significant policy shift for the Biden administration.

These facilities, known as “influx care facilities,” have been in use for emergency cases since as early as 2019.

In this July 9, 2019, photo, a staff member cleans in a dinning hall at the U.S. government’s newest holding center for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas. The government said the holding center will give it much-needed capacity to take in more children from the Border Patrol. Source: AP Images.

Detaining unaccompanied migrant children in the United States has been a subject of ongoing controversy. Biden ran on overturning former President Donald Trump’s immigration actions, including the facilities used to house migrant children.

“I’m not making new laws; I’m eliminating bad policies,” Biden said in 2021. “What I’m doing is addressing issues. Ninety-nine percent of them — the last president of the United States issued executive orders that I thought were counterproductive to our security, counterproductive to who we are as a country. Particularly in the area of immigration.”

This is about how America is safer, stronger, and more prosperous when we have a fair, orderly, and humane legal immigration system.

President Joe Biden

However, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services temporarily reopened the influx care facility in Carrizo Springs in February 2021. The migrant facility can start receiving unaccompanied minors as early as today.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have grappled with increasing numbers of unaccompanied minors at the border, leading to criticism over potential violations of legal protections.

FILE - Children lie inside a pod at the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in Donna, Texas, March 30, 2021. When nearly 19,000 children traveling alone were stopped at the border in March 2021, senior officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and then-domestic policy chief Susan Rice met twice weekly to strategize, moving children out of badly overcrowded Border Patrol facilities to emergency shelters, including convention centers in California and military bases in Texas. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, Pool, File)
Children lie inside a pod at the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in Donna, Texas, March 30, 2021. When nearly 19,000 children traveling alone were stopped at the border in March 2021, senior officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and then-domestic policy chief Susan Rice met twice weekly to strategize, moving children out of badly overcrowded Border Patrol facilities to emergency shelters, including convention centers in California and military bases in Texas. Source: AP Images.

Allegations have surfaced that children were being held in adult facilities under unsafe and unsanitary conditions, described as juvenile prisons. Jennifer Costello was the acting DHS inspector general in 2019. While visiting CBP facilities, she reported that three out of five lacked shower access for children.

“We are gravely concerned about the conditions we see in the CBP facilities at the border. We are concerned that it could lead to additional security incidents and obviously a high risk of disease,” Costello said at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing.

In 2021, the Carrizo Springs site housed migrant teenagers, but it’s now expanding with better facilities and higher care standards.

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Full story

President Joe Biden is reopening a second Trump-era border facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas. It’s purpose is to house unaccompanied migrant children, and it represents a significant policy shift for the Biden administration.

These facilities, known as “influx care facilities,” have been in use for emergency cases since as early as 2019.

In this July 9, 2019, photo, a staff member cleans in a dinning hall at the U.S. government’s newest holding center for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas. The government said the holding center will give it much-needed capacity to take in more children from the Border Patrol. Source: AP Images.

Detaining unaccompanied migrant children in the United States has been a subject of ongoing controversy. Biden ran on overturning former President Donald Trump’s immigration actions, including the facilities used to house migrant children.

“I’m not making new laws; I’m eliminating bad policies,” Biden said in 2021. “What I’m doing is addressing issues. Ninety-nine percent of them — the last president of the United States issued executive orders that I thought were counterproductive to our security, counterproductive to who we are as a country. Particularly in the area of immigration.”

This is about how America is safer, stronger, and more prosperous when we have a fair, orderly, and humane legal immigration system.

President Joe Biden

However, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services temporarily reopened the influx care facility in Carrizo Springs in February 2021. The migrant facility can start receiving unaccompanied minors as early as today.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have grappled with increasing numbers of unaccompanied minors at the border, leading to criticism over potential violations of legal protections.

FILE - Children lie inside a pod at the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in Donna, Texas, March 30, 2021. When nearly 19,000 children traveling alone were stopped at the border in March 2021, senior officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and then-domestic policy chief Susan Rice met twice weekly to strategize, moving children out of badly overcrowded Border Patrol facilities to emergency shelters, including convention centers in California and military bases in Texas. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, Pool, File)
Children lie inside a pod at the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in Donna, Texas, March 30, 2021. When nearly 19,000 children traveling alone were stopped at the border in March 2021, senior officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and then-domestic policy chief Susan Rice met twice weekly to strategize, moving children out of badly overcrowded Border Patrol facilities to emergency shelters, including convention centers in California and military bases in Texas. Source: AP Images.

Allegations have surfaced that children were being held in adult facilities under unsafe and unsanitary conditions, described as juvenile prisons. Jennifer Costello was the acting DHS inspector general in 2019. While visiting CBP facilities, she reported that three out of five lacked shower access for children.

“We are gravely concerned about the conditions we see in the CBP facilities at the border. We are concerned that it could lead to additional security incidents and obviously a high risk of disease,” Costello said at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing.

In 2021, the Carrizo Springs site housed migrant teenagers, but it’s now expanding with better facilities and higher care standards.

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