Migrant families will be detained in hotels in the Phoenix area in response to an increasing number of people crossing the southern border, authorities said Friday. This is another step in the Biden government to set up the temporary space for them.
Sen. Kyrsten Cinema, D-Ariz., Was told that U.S. immigration and customs enforcement “will occupy several hotels along the southwestern border, including in Chandler and Phoenix,” her office said in a statement.
Chandler is a suburb of Phoenix that is more than 150 miles north of the border.
ICE declined to identify specific hotels and locations, saying only that the $ 86.9 million contract signed with Endeavors Inc. last month announced, will provide approximately 1,200 hotel beds in Texas and Arizona. Migrant families usually stay less than 72 hours for processing.
Migrants walk on a dirt road after crossing the US-Mexico mission in Mission, Texas on Tuesday, March 23, 2021. A resurgence of migrants on the southwestern border has put the Biden government in defense. The head of Homeland Security acknowledged the seriousness of the problem, but insisted it was under control, saying he would not revive a Trump-era practice of expelling teens and children immediately. (AP Photo / Julio Cortez)
((AP Photo / Julio Cortez))
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The contract states that the San Antonio provider of veteran care, disaster relief and migration services already has beds available at hotels in Chandler and the cities of El Paso and Cotulla, southwest of San Antonio, Texas. The first families to be housed in hotels under the contract would arrive on Friday.
Cinema’s office said the senator had spoken to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and would “hold him accountable for protecting Arizona communities and ensuring that all migrants are treated fairly and humanely.”
The border patrol encountered 52,904 families along the Mexican border last month, up from 19,286 in February and 3,455 in March 2020. Under Endeavors’ contract, authorities expect the highest number of family members in 20 years over the 12-month period ending in 30 September.
Only about one in three families encountered last month were quickly expelled from the U.S. under federal pandemic-related forces denying people the chance to seek asylum. Immigration authorities have released families with children aged 6 and under into the country while the case is being decided.
Mexico has also resisted taking back Central American families with young children, especially in the Tamaulipas state bordering the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. The US flies single families to other border cities – San Diego and El Paso – to drive from there to Mexico.
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To save time, the Border Patrol, according to rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, migrating families – of about 966 people released on Tuesday – without notice to appear in court. Instead, they are told to report to an ICE office within 60 days.
The contract with Endeavors comes because the government is trying to keep more space for families and children unaccompanied. The Border Patrol last month picked up nearly 19,000 children traveling alone, the highest monthly total recorded.
The Department of Health and Human Services – which places unaccompanied children with ‘sponsors’, mostly parents and relatives, has found space in conference centers, military bases and other large venues. Los Angeles County officials said Friday that the fair will be used to temporarily house up to 2,500 unaccompanied children.
Lawyers representing immigrant children in years of federal litigation over probation conditions on Friday expressed concern that Health and Human Services is not moving fast enough to release the minors to sponsors. Without doing so, as long as border authorities continue to detain children at this rate, ‘it is difficult to see how an increase in overcrowded, irregular facilities can possibly be avoided,’ the lawyers wrote in a court document.
Lawyers have written in court documents that the Health and Human Services Refugee Relocation Office is stepping up efforts on the recently opened sites to quickly reunite these children with their families.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and regular Biden critic, has asked the administration to close an unaccompanied children’s facility at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, citing allegations that they are not getting enough to eat. and that boys are not supervised in the showers.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday that the government “takes the safety and well-being of children in our care very seriously” and that the authorities will investigate Abbott’s allegations, but that at this stage we have no basis for his call “to close the facility.