Government prepares for another wave of child migrants

The federal government is opening three additional centers to house an expected increase of unaccompanied teen migrants over the U.S. southern border in 2016.

The new centers are controversial in part because they highlight a crisis thought to be a relic of 2014. In addition, the states slated to host the new centers—Colorado, Florida, and New Mexico—did not volunteer but learned from federal officials that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would build the facilities on federal property.

The new migrant shelters will augment two others opened just this month in Metro Dallas’s Rockwall and Ellis counties, providing a 42 percent increase in housing capacity for teen migrants. The centers spread across 12 states but are mainly in those along the border with Mexico.

Though 17 percent of unaccompanied child migrants are younger than 12, most of those in HHS shelters range between ages 14 and 17. They stay an average of 34 days before they are released to live with “sponsors”—usually a relative in the U.S.—as they wait to hear whether they will get permission to stay or face deportation. A sponsor must consent to being fingerprinted for a background check and agree to ensure the child goes to all legal proceedings, as well as comply with the child’s possible deportation.

Those in the unaccompanied child shelters receive on-site “classroom education, healthcare, socialization/recreation, vocational training, mental health services, family reunification, access to legal services, and case management.”

Because of federal law, unaccompanied children must be processed through the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), not handled by the Department of Homeland Security’s Border Patrol. But some people question whether this alternative method of treating teen migrants might induce more children to attempt illegal entry alone because they stand a better chance of being “reunified” with a relative in the U.S., unlike the process for older migrants or those who arrive in family groups. Pew Research has noted most young migrants come from some of the most violent countries in the world.

Causes of the migrant crisis notwithstanding, officials are hoping to avoid a repetition of what happened in 2014: During a period of overall historically low migration, so many unaccompanied children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador crossed the U.S. border that Border Patrol facilities became makeshift camps. Agents’ work to secure the border was hampered by handling the estimated 68,000 children.

Bracing for a new wave of unaccompanied minors, HHS will host 1,000 teens in a renovated warehouse in the sprawling Federal Center complex in Lakewood, Co., near Denver. Another 800 teens will live at a Job Corps site in Homestead, Fla. And 400 will be housed at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, HHS spokesman Mark Weber said Thursday. The Florida facility could see children arriving as soon as next month. The Colorado shelter is expected to open in April, following needed renovation.

“This is out of an abundance of caution,” Weber said of the new temporary shelters, where each occupied bed is expected to cost more than $223 per day.

Experts do not expect border crossings to return to 2014 levels, but they have remained high this year even into the typically slow winter months. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, 10,588 unaccompanied children crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in October and November, more than double the 5,129 who crossed during the same months last year.

Statistics also show the number of family members crossing together has nearly tripled, to 12,505.

U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat representing the swing district where the Colorado shelter will be located, said the potential impact on the surrounding community will be small since migrants are not allowed to leave the site.

In a pre-Christmas interview on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said officials want to ensure children are placed in the “least restrictive environment possible.”

“We’re worried that there may be another episode on the border this coming summer and we want to be prepared for that,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.