President Joe Biden is reopening a second Trump-era border facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas. It’s purpose is to house unaccompanied migrant children, and it represents a significant policy shift for the Biden administration.
These facilities, known as “influx care facilities,” have been in use for emergency cases since as early as 2019.
Detaining unaccompanied migrant children in the United States has been a subject of ongoing controversy. Biden ran on overturning former President Donald Trump’s immigration actions, including the facilities used to house migrant children.
“I’m not making new laws; I’m eliminating bad policies,” Biden said in 2021. “What I’m doing is addressing issues. Ninety-nine percent of them — the last president of the United States issued executive orders that I thought were counterproductive to our security, counterproductive to who we are as a country. Particularly in the area of immigration.”
This is about how America is safer, stronger, and more prosperous when we have a fair, orderly, and humane legal immigration system.
President Joe Biden
However, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services temporarily reopened the influx care facility in Carrizo Springs in February 2021. The migrant facility can start receiving unaccompanied minors as early as today.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have grappled with increasing numbers of unaccompanied minors at the border, leading to criticism over potential violations of legal protections.
Allegations have surfaced that children were being held in adult facilities under unsafe and unsanitary conditions, described as juvenile prisons. Jennifer Costello was the acting DHS inspector general in 2019. While visiting CBP facilities, she reported that three out of five lacked shower access for children.
“We are gravely concerned about the conditions we see in the CBP facilities at the border. We are concerned that it could lead to additional security incidents and obviously a high risk of disease,” Costello said at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing.
In 2021, the Carrizo Springs site housed migrant teenagers, but it’s now expanding with better facilities and higher care standards.
