The Trump administration is currently detaining over 13,000 migrant children in facilities throughout the United States Approximately 1,600 of these children are being moved to a tent concentration camp in West Texas. The conditions are grim.
New York Times reporter Caitlin Dickerson is among the few journalists who've been following the detained migrant children's story. They were separated from their families under Trump's policies.
Hundreds of migrant kids are being shipped each week to a tent city in South Texas, where they won't get schooling or have full access to lawyers. They're moved at midnight with only a few hours notice so they don't try to escape. https://t.co/FsXuZ8ycUi
— Caitlin Dickerson (@itscaitlinhd) September 30, 2018
Most of the kids are from Central America, and Guatemala specifically. The recent relocations have taken place "with little notice on late-night voyages" to the stark tent complex in West Texas, where the separated kids receive no schooling, have no contact with their parents, and have limited or no access to legal representation.
Here's a look at what's happening:
• Why are they being moved in the middle of the night and without notice?
To avoid escape attempts.
Migrant children are housed in what are known as unsecure facilities, meaning that doors are unlocked and they can technically leave at any time, though they are closely monitored and strongly discouraged from doing so. Several shelter workers explained that children who are on their way to the rapidly expanding tent city in Tornillo, Tex., are being woken up and moved in the middle of the night because they will be less likely to try to run away in the dark.
The children are told of the move only a few hours prior so that they do not have time to formulate an escape plan, the workers said. (Migrant children are held in unsecure facilities rather than immigration jails, where adult border crossers are housed, because of a federal consent decree that says children can only be detained in secure facilities for 20 days.)
• If they were already in shelters, why are they being moved?
The shelters that are traditionally used to detain unaccompanied minors are overflowing.
They had been hovering at close to 90 percent capacity since May, and each month, more children have been streaming across the border. Because conditions at the Tornillo tent city are generally rougher than in shelters, the government is seeking to minimize time that children spend there, so it is electing to send children who have been in the United States longer and are therefore closer to being released to sponsors, rather than sending new arrivals.
• How do the two types of facilities compare?
The shelters are licensed and monitored by state child welfare agencies that impose requirements on staff hiring and training, as well as education and safety. Children in shelters receive regular schooling and are required to have access to lawyers who help develop their claims for asylum or other forms of legal immigration status.
Conversely, the tent city is considered an "emergency shelter" and is thus unregulated, except for a loose set of guidelines crafted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees it. The guidelines do not require schooling, so children are given workbooks but are not obligated to fill them out. Access to legal services at the tent city is also limited.
[Migrant children at the detention facility in Tornillo, Texas. PHOTO: Mike Blake/Reuters]
Must read from @itscaitlinhd: hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night and moved to a tent city in Texas. The tent city has no school. And kids sleep in groups of 20, separated by gender with little access to legal services https://t.co/vdgHnA04KS
— Astead (@AsteadWesley) September 30, 2018
