This week, the Biden administration’s handling of migrant children continued to be a major issue: More than 5,000 remain in border facilities that aren’t meant to hold children for more than 72 hours. 

As my colleague Aura Bogado told The Majority Report recently, this is a humanitarian crisis – and one the new administration should’ve seen coming. Children are being held in detention-like settings as the government scrambles to address the influx. “This idea that it is somehow a surprise,” she said, “it’s not a surprise.” President Joe Biden should have been more prepared, given that immigration was a major talking point of his campaign, she said.

Several factors are driving the increase of unaccompanied children and other migrants to the U.S. Arrivals at the border typically go up during springtime, after the colder winter months let up. Former President Donald Trump, whose administration instituted cruel immigration policies such as a measure to separate parents and children at the border, is no longer in office. And migrants are fleeing poverty and violence that have been exacerbated by the aftermath of hurricanes, the pandemic and political corruption.

Aura, who has covered immigration for more than a decade, said the administration could have done more to prepare existing government shelters for unaccompanied children. This network totaling about 200 shelters is run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the federal agency charged with temporarily housing children until they’re released to a suitable family member or sponsor. Currently, nearly 13,000 children are in the agency’s custody.

Instead, the administration is now opening several emergency shelters at convention centers and military bases that aren’t subject to the same level of oversight conducted at regular shelters.

Here are some other developments from this week:

The government will begin holding some migrant families in hotels. Under a new program overseen by nonprofit organizations, the administration is opening what it is calling “family reception sites” in hotels across Arizona and Texas, Reuters reports. The program includes 1,239 beds, as well as “COVID-19 testing, medical care, food services, social workers and case managers to help with travel and onward destinations.” Staff will also be trained on how to care for children. Last year under Trump, The Associated Press and other outlets reported that children as young as 1 were being held in hotels under the supervision of adults not trained in child care. It doesn’t appear the Biden administration has addressed publicly how its program will be different. 

Reporters were allowed to tour a border facility for the first time under Biden. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security allowed The Associated Press and a camera crew to visit the Donna, Texas, border facility that is holding thousands of unaccompanied children and migrant families. An officer escorting the reporters said more than 2,000 children have been held there longer than 72 hours. “On average, teens and children are spending 133 hours in the facility before HHS (Health and Human Services) placement, roughly twice the legal limit,” The Washington Post reported.

Migrant children in U.S. custody are testing positive for COVID-19. In Texas shelters, more than 250 children have tested positive, according to state data obtained by Houston Public Media, which also reports that “at least 37 of the 44 facilities licensed by the state of Texas to care for migrant children have reported COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks.” The Associated Press also reported that more than 50 teenagers being held at the emergency shelter recently opened in Midland, Texas, contracted the virus, with at least one child needing to be hospitalized. Due to the outbreak, admissions to that shelter are on “pause for now,” a spokesperson told the AP.

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. A Florida woman is reconnecting parents with children who have recently crossed the border alone. (Miami Herald)

For more than a decade, Nora Sandigo has advocated for migrant children in U.S. custody and become the legal guardian of hundreds. Now she is working the phones, calling pro bono attorneys and other advocates like her to help children who have arrived in the U.S. this year.

The kicker: Each of Nora Sandigo’s six phones has a different ringtone, so she can keep track of which one is buzzing. In less than two minutes, nine calls come in. On the other end: desperate immigrant parents trying to locate their children in the U.S. immigration detention system. Confusion. Anxiety. Agony fills the makeshift call center set up in Sandigo’s living room in South Miami-Dade. “Help me find my baby,” wailed one mother. Cried another: “My son has been transferred again and I don’t know where he is.” Patiently, Sandigo, a dispatcher of sorts, takes a deep breath and adds their information to a growing list on one of her iPhones. Once again, she has no time to chow down a snack as the mayhem heightens.

2. Migrants face uncertain futures following the closure of a tent camp near the border. (The Texas Tribune and ProPublica) 

The camp in Matamoros, Mexico, with its makeshift tents and lack of running water, at one point held roughly 3,000 migrants who were waiting for their immigration court dates in the U.S. under a Trump-era policy called Migrant Protection Protocols. In February, United Nations and U.S. officials shut down the camp, “stoking confusion about who gets in and who doesn’t.” 

The kicker: The confusion stemming from the camp’s closure has added to uncertainty about how the Biden administration is more broadly handling immigration cases involving migrants at the border. Outside of MPP, the Biden administration is rejecting nearly all migrant adults and some families under the public health order from last March, which invoked COVID-19 as a reason for turning them away. At the same time, the government is allowing some newly arrived migrant families to enter in south Texas, pointing to a lack of shelter space because of new regulations in Mexico. “Now it’s a bit of being at the right place at the right time,” said Savitri Arvey, a researcher on migration at the University of Texas at Austin. “That causes panic and misinformation.”

3. Black lives matter in the U.S. immigration system. (The Nation)

In the wake of George Floyd’s death and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, immigrant rights groups are hopeful “that the time is right for the broader public to finally recognize the impact the country’s immigration system has on Black migrants.”

The kicker: As Black immigrant advocates explained to me, even in the immigration justice world, implicit bias makes it difficult for Black migrants to get the aid, lawyers, and support they need. “There are ways in which the nonprofit industrial complex can replicate a lot of the harm that exists outside of these social justice spaces,” says Tsion Gurmu, BAJI’s (the Black Alliance for Just Immigration) legal director. As Nicole Morgan, an attorney at RAICES, points out, many well-meaning white attorneys don’t recognize their prejudice as bigotry. “I’ve heard attorneys say, ‘Oh, I don’t take clients from Benin, because those people are difficult to work with.’ ” Other Black lawyers say they’ve heard white colleagues use that same word – “difficult” – to describe other predominantly Black nationalities. In other situations, Morgan says, asylum attorneys tend to understand that their clients are dealing with serious trauma and that it can manifest as anger or frustration, but this patience tends to wear away when it comes to Black clients. Thus, white attorneys are more likely to use “difficult” to describe African and Caribbean clients.
 

NEWS BREAK: ON FINDING JOY

After a year of darkness and uncertainty, Tampa Bay Times columnist Stephanie Hayes writes that it might be strange to feel joy now, “like buying Arbor Mist with a fake I.D.” But it’s OK to feel happiness as vaccination efforts roll out across the country and your Facebook feed.  

From the Tampa Bay Times:

Take that vaccine selfie (but don’t post the card unless you love identity theft). Slip into the Tylenol aisle at CVS and get the snap done. Slap a like on someone’s photo, even if you’ve now seen 800 close-ups of armpit creases. Watch all the videos of grandparents hugging little ones. Your “like” fingers are going to have tendonitis, but that’s a crisis to deal with later.

Wake up the morning of your spouse’s vaccine appointment and say “HAPPY VAX DAY!” as if they are 5 and there’s an ersatz Moana actor coming to the birthday party. Stand at the door and bid them well, in the manner of a World War I bride.

Do not feel pressure to play it cool! Wear something festive. Smile under your mask, even though no one can see. Cry. It’s healthy to cry. Go on, fantasize about the things that lie ahead. Let go of anger at those who didn’t make an effort to help the greater good. This note is mostly for myself.

We will never, ever forget what we’ve been through. We will never disregard the 2.8 million people we’ve lost around the world. I once overheard a colleague describe to a reader why we report on bad things. He explained that, without struggle, our successes don’t mean as much.

This is one of those moments. Don’t let it pass without feeling it. Now, tell your Band-Aid to smile for the camera.

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected]. 

– Laura C. Morel