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Federal officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are no longer considering the use of Moffett Field to house unaccompanied minors detained at the southern border, according to a statement from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo on March 18.
The agency has been searching for a place to temporarily shelter growing numbers of children arriving at the border, and surveyed buildings at Moffett Field for use as so-called “influx facilities” last week. The 1,940-acre federal property includes dorm-style buildings typically used to house NASA student interns.
Immigrant rights groups blasted the idea, staging a protest Monday, March 15, over what they consider an abusive practice of detaining migrant children and separating them from their families. Members of the group Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) likened influx centers to locking children in cages.
“We are relieved the Biden Administration decided not to establish a children’s detention center in Mountain View, however, our work is not finished. Thousands of children and their families remain detained in inhumane and horrific conditions. History speaks for itself,” Maricela Gutierrez, executive director of SIREN, said in a statement. “We all know that the immigration detention system is flawed and beyond repair. We call on President Biden and Secretary Mayorakas to take bold actions by dismantling immigration detention completely.”
In a short statement, Eshoo said on March 18 that Health and Human Services (HHS) will not select Mofett Field to house migrant children, marking a quick decision to reverse course.
“I will continue to do everything I can to ensure unaccompanied children arriving at our borders and in the care of of HHS are treated humanely and with dignity,” Eshoo said.
Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed a 100% increase in the number of children and families arriving at the border between January and February this year, which includes a 60% increase in unaccompanied minors arriving at the border. Most of the families are from Central America.
It falls to HHS to care for and house children who have not been placed with family members after being held at border patrol stations for 72 hours. Though the agency has managed to secure 13,450 licensed beds at permanent facilities for unaccompanied minors, HHS says it needs influx facilities to house significant spikes of new arrivals.
“Additional capacity is critical in order to continue to provide a safe place for children to be released from border patrol stations,” HHS officials said.
The current President of the United States is responsible for this CURRENT mess. And as we watched on the CBS Sunday morning news interviews, his Cabinet Secretary for this area seems ‘not really ready’ for accepting responsibility for the cries from this Crisus.
I think it better, that kids be housed in better, more personal and roomy federal environments in Calif, even here at Moffit Federal Airfield than remain crammed (illegally) in Texas detention and warehouse facilities. PERIOD. And for God’s sake document who they entered with (even if Abula or an aunt) and what their family connections are before moving them anywhere!
It is desperate to ‘send the children’ alone, but we have seen or read or viewed that type of family desperation before – in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, and now again in the Americas.