WASHINGTON – The Biden government on Saturday announced the opening of a new, temporary overflow facility for unaccompanied migrant children in Pecos, Texas.
The Target Lodge Pecos North ICF facility will initially house about 500 children with the potential to expand to 2,000, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. The facility would be ‘hard-sided’ rather than a tent, but the department said additional “semi-permanent and soft-sided” capacity could be added if needed.
It was not immediately clear when the property would open for migrating youths.
Minors housed in the facility will ‘receive educational, medical, mental health and leisure services until they can be reunited with families or sponsors without undue delay’, according to HHS.
“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, is working aggressively with our intergenerational partners to ensure that unaccompanied migrant children are safe and as quickly as possible with family members or other suitable sponsors,” HHS said in a statement.
Immigration officials have recorded a dramatic increase in encounters with unaccompanied children over the past month. As of Saturday, there were 5,049 minor minors in border patrol custody and a total of 9,830 immigrants of all ages also in border patrol custody. This is an increase from Thursday, when 4,615 unaccompanied children and 7,970 immigrants were reported in border patrol.
More than 500 migrant children were detained by the border patrol for more than ten days from Thursday, beyond the legal limit of three days, as many border facilities not built to house children far exceeded their capacity, according to new data by NBC News.
Many of the children are being held in the Rio Grande Valley, the center of recent migration. Immigrants of all ages have too many conditions. A major cause of overcrowding is a lack of space at facilities managed by HHS’s Refugee Relocation Office, the agency designated to care for migrant children.
Immigration officials said that while the resettlement office was working to build up its capacity to nearly 13,500 beds, ‘extra capacity is urgently needed to manage both improved COVID-19 mitigation strategies and the increasing number’ of unaccompanied children’s referrals.
The Pecos Center will serve as a stopover before children are transferred to shelters for resettlement, where they will receive educational, medical and recreational services until they can be reunited with families or sponsors.
Ainsley reports from Washington and Lozano from Los Angeles.
