According to a leaked report that the Associated Press has received, tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children are being detained in an obscure network of about 200 facilities that stretches about two dozen states and includes five shelters with 1,000+ children crammed together.
Some of the facilities detaining children are operated by contractors who are currently being sued because, allegedly, children were physically and sexually violated in their shelters. Meanwhile, others are brand new start ups with little to no experience taking care of migrant children.
A dozen unlicensed facilities within military stations, stadiums, and convention centers that skirt state laws and are not subject to traditional legal oversight are part of the Biden Administration's effort to detain thousands of children crossing the US-Mexico border alone.
José, a father who evacuated El Salvador after his village was the target of a massacre, said he called a government hotline multiple times that was set up for parents trying to reunite with their children, but no one would tell him where his daughter was. Furthermore, other NGOs can't help him locate his daughter either because the Biden Administration has cut off access to the news media the moment these children are detained his facilities, citing the coronavirus pandemic and privacy concerns as an excuse.
There are no regulations for these facilities, according to Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist who helps immigrant families reunite, and children have been "Coming out sick, with COVID, infested with lice, and it will not surprise me to see children dying as a consequence, as we saw during the Trump years. The Biden administration is feverishly putting up these pop-up detention facilities, many of which have no experience working with children."
Cohen described parents receiving calls from people refusing to identify themselves. They are told to be at an airport or bus station in the next two hours to pick up their children, who have been held for more than a month without notice, or they wouldn’t be released. Some parents are told to pay a travel agency thousands of dollars to have their child sent to them, she said.
According to one anonymous official working in the immigration system, the agency has received reports of abuse that resulted in a handful of contract staffers being dismissed from working at the emergency sites this year.
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