A holding center is under construction on a 40-acre site in Donna, Texas designed to house unaccompanied children and adults crossing the U.S./Mexico border.
The 185,000 square foot facility is being built by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency and is just one of a dozen facilities either being built or upgraded for temporary migrant shelter.
A former facility once devoted to Alzheimer’s care in west El Paso is being converted into a shelter, while plans have additionally been announced to provide housing space inside the 125,000 square foot San Diego Convention Center.
A dormitory belonging to the Pennsylvania Academy in Erie will soon be used to house up to 150 migrant children, while an emergency intake site in Albion, Michigan is expected to provide around 240 beds for migrant boys between the ages of 5 and 17.
According to the CBP the number of migrants increased by 28% during the first two months of this year.
In a press release, the CBP said the increase in migrant traffic is due to “reasons which include violence, natural disaster, food insecurity, and poverty in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America.”
In attempting to deal with the migrant surge, different government agencies have responded differently. The Department of Health and Human Services has asked federal employees to consider taking a four-month paid leave to help care for migrant children in some of the border shelters.
That HHS initiative, says the New York Times, “is at the heart of a frantic effort by the Biden administration to keep up with a surge in young people crossing the southwestern border hoping to reunite with relatives already in the United States.”
Reports indicate that up to 30,000 or more migrants could arrive per month between now and mid-summer, suggesting a need for yet more shelter space.
Operation Artemis, an effort led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is reporting that the vast majority of shelter facilities along or near the border are currently at or even beyond capacity.
Last week, the White House announced President Biden’s discretionary funding request for the upcoming fiscal year, asking for $1.5 trillion in funding.
Of that amount, around $1.2 billion would go for the processing of migrants and enhanced border security measures. The President’s plan also calls for giving $345 million to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to speed up the asylum application process.
By Garry Boulard