U.S. reopening facility near southern border to house unaccompanied migrant children – CBS News

Washington – The Biden administration is reopening a site near the border with Mexico to house migrant children who enter the country without their parents as the federal government struggles to accommodate an increase in migration there, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told CBS News Thursday.

The site, a former work camp in Carrizo Springs, Texas, was equipped to house unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody starting Friday, the U.S. officials said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

It will be the second time in less than two months that the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, has reopened a so-called "Influx care facility" for unaccompanied children, who have been crossing the U.S. southern border in larger numbers in recent weeks.

Last month, HHS restarted housing migrant children at another former work camp for oil workers in Pecos, Texas, that was at the center of reports of poor conditions in 2021.

Under federal law, U.S. border officials must transfer unaccompanied children who are not from Mexico to HHS within 72 hours of processing them.

Over the past several years, amid spikes in border crossings under Republican and Democratic administrations, the department has turned to "Influx care facilities" and other sites to house migrant children in locations with more capacity.

The refugee office is a division of HHS. "While ORR's priority is to place children into standard care provider facilities, access to Influx Care Facility capacity remains necessary to ensure that ORR can promptly accept referrals when ORR's other network facilities reach or approach capacity," HHS said in its statement to CBS News.

Starting this summer, the number of migrant children crossing the U.S. southern border increased sharply, amid a broader spike in migrant arrivals that has strained federal, state and local resources, including in large cities like New York and Chicago.

HHS received more than 12,000 migrant children in September and 13,000 in August, compared to around 9,400 in July, according to internal HHS data obtained by CBS News.

As of Thursday morning, HHS was housing 10,960 unaccompanied minors, a 75% increase from early July, when it had around 6,000 migrant children in its custody, federal figures show.

Record numbers of migrant children have crossed the U.S. southern border over the past two years, creating significant logistical and humanitarian challenges to the Biden administration.

Soon after Mr. Biden took office in Jan. 2021, child migration spiked, leading to dangerous overcrowding in the small number of Border Patrol facilities designed to temporarily hold migrant children and families.