Trump Administration Plans Large-Scale Detention Facilities for Unaccompanied Migrant Children

The Administration for Children and Families is seeking contractors to build “emergency influx facility” campuses that could house up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children. Each facility would accommodate eight children per room, with shared toilets, showers and sinks, and be surrounded by an eight-foot perimeter fence. Requirements include proximity to a hospital (within 30 miles), an airport (within 60 miles) and pediatric, behavioral-health, dental and diagnostic services (within 30 miles). Recreation space must total at least one acre per 100 children, but it may be split between indoor and outdoor areas. Contracts are expected to be awarded by the end of the year, with an initial capacity of 400 children to be operational within 30 days and the ability to scale up to 1,000 beds per “task order.”

The Independent

ProPublica reports that immigration judges have issued more than 10,000 removal and voluntary-deportation orders for immigrant minors each month—a surge that far exceeds numbers from the previous Trump term. Currently, more than 150 shelter facilities house unaccompanied children under the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act obliges the government to provide legal counsel to these minors, but roughly 20,000 children lost representation when a long-standing contract with the Acacia Center for Justice ended last month.

The Independent

After the withdrawal of the Texas-based Burke Law Group, the administration awarded a no-bid contract worth at least $158 million to anti-trafficking organization Our Rescue (formerly Operation Underground Railroad). Federal filings indicate the group could receive more than $244 million under the contract to manage the proposed facilities.

The Independent

• “Our Rescue is steadfast on our mission to help vulnerable children across the U.S. and around the world,” — CEO Derek Benner

The Independent