Health and Human Services authorities are set to use a convention center in Dallas, Texas, to house approximately 3,000 migrants as border facilities fill to unprecedented levels.
Officials have their sights set on the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, which will be used as an influx building for 90 days to house boys between the age of 15 and 17, according to the Associated Press, which obtained a memo about the effort. The site has been dubbed a “decompression center.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and HHS will be working together to facilitate “shelter management and contracts” for food, medical care, and sanitation, the memo said. Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax said “collective action is necessary” to combat the surge at the southern border, and he vowed the city would do its “best to support this humanitarian effort.”
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DEPLOYING FEMA TO ASSIST WITH SURGE OF MIGRANT CHILDREN AT BORDER
The move follows an announcement from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Saturday that he would be enlisting the help of FEMA to support “a government-wide effort over the next 90 days to safely receive, shelter, and transfer unaccompanied children” in centers along the U.S.-Mexico border following bipartisan backlash.
“A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” the DHS leader said. “We are working in partnership with HHS to address the needs of unaccompanied children, which is made only more difficult given the protocols and restrictions required to protect the public health and the health of the children themselves. Our goal is to ensure that unaccompanied children are transferred to HHS as quickly as possible, consistent with legal requirements and in the best interest of the children.”
The Biden administration has scrambled to house unaccompanied children as authorities estimate 117,000 solo minors will enter the United States by the end of the year. Media reports have said more than 3,200 children have been moved to holding facilities, which are designed to house adults, under the watch of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Of the total, 1,400 have remained in detention past the 72-hour limit in small concrete rooms without beds, dubbed “hieleras,” or iceboxes. The number of solo minors in custody is the highest on record.
Biden administration officials said on Friday the migrant children are under U.S. care for an average of 37 days and admitted that they are unable to keep up with the skyrocketing demand.
“We are not in a place where we’re going to be able to meet the demand that we are seeing,” a Biden administration official said. “Every day, we are bringing new beds online, but it takes a lot of time, unfortunately, in terms of our licensed care-provider network. We are aggressively adding hundreds of beds by the week to our care-provider network.”
Lawyers said last week the Biden administration stonewalled attempts to visit a tent facility in Donna, Texas, which sits roughly 165 miles from Dallas. The complex houses approximately 1,000 children, and attorneys have said the minors were denied showers in addition to being forced to sleep in close quarters to one another.
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Biden administration officials have begun assessing property in Moffett Field, California, the home of a NASA airstrip and laboratory, which is nestled in the Golden State’s tech hub, approximately 11 miles from Apple’s headquarters, to house migrants. The federal land sits about 500 miles inland from the U.S.-Mexico border.
