The Department of Defense has accepted a request from the Department of Health and Human Services to house 20,000 immigrant children on military bases.
According to the Washington Post, HHS formally made the request on Wednesday night, and Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jamie Davis announced on behalf of the Pentagon Thursday it would be housing the unaccompanied minors on three military bases as early as July.
The facilities will be staffed and run by HHS employees, as currently dictated by the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy toward illegal immigration, and DOD will be reimbursed for all housing costs.
[Also read: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
The Post notes that the plan mirrors action taken by the Obama administration in 2014, when it housed 7,000 child immigrants on three separate military bases.
The Trump administration has recently come under fire for separating illegal immigrant families upon their apprehension in between official ports of entry.
Amid the backlash, Trump signed a Wednesday executive order declaring that children not be separated from accompanying parents or family members upon apprehension, assuming the adults are not deemed to pose a threat to a child’s health and well-being.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it will start keeping verified family units together, but said that those that have already been split will not be reunited until the adult’s legal case has finished. Additionally, housing verified family units together will require Attorney General Jeff Sessions to file a request to modify 1997’s Flores V. Reno decision, which mandates child immigrants be released from detention after 20 days.
So far, thousands of child immigrants have been separated from their family units and are being detained under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy.
