Inside the big tent city sheltering migrant children in a Texas desert



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Most of Tornillo's children are waiting for F.B.I's results. check their potential sponsors. Children can not be turned over to sponsors until fingerprints and criminal background checks are complete.

In fact, these new requirements, such as the need for sponsors to provide fingerprints and those of other adults in their household, have even delayed the clearest sponsorship applications, such as those submitted by parents. Immigration control authorities also began using fingerprints to arrest the applicants – most of them being undocumented immigrants – which prevented some potential sponsors from coming forward.

Robert Carey, who headed the Office for Refugee Resettlement under President Barack Obama, said the delays should not be a surprise. "Whether it is accidental or wanted, it is a predictable consequence of the arrest of sponsors who declare that fewer sponsors will come forward and that children will stay in care longer," he said. he declared.

Mark A. Weber, a spokesman for Health and Human Services, said Friday that sponsors were continuing to make themselves known and that the agency had not noticed any noticeable drop from those who wanted to follow the process.

In deciding who to place in the city tents, the government stated that it would only send children 13 years and older, as well as those who were about to be handed over to the sponsors, to minimize the length of their stay.

"It's a last step, if you will," said Weber of Tornillo.

On Friday, it was hard to say who was more than staff – staff members or children. Among the 1,500 staff members were social workers, barbers, medical staff, mental health counselors and firefighters. On Friday, they were everywhere with their yellow vests at the first responder, pushing brooms and checking fire trucks. When a group of boys went to the washroom, they were escorted by workers.

Inside Echo Shelter, a huge reinforced steel tent for girls, teenagers in inflated winter jacket lined up getting ready to go out. In a math class in a cafeteria style room, girls sitting at a table with exercise books while a teacher explained the question on the projector screen: "What's up? is an equation?

Housing for children in Tornillo costs about three times more than placement in a traditional shelter, according to government figures. Mr. Weber, the health and social services spokesperson, was unable to quantify the total cost of setting up and running the city in tents. But he added that standard shelter beds cost $ 250 a day and emergency emergency shelter beds cost $ 775 a day.

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