Last summer, the Homestead shelter near Miami became the symbol of President Donald Trump’s treatment of migrant children. Protesters rallied outside the massive shelter for months, holding signs that read, “Homes Instead,” and, “Stop Separating Families.” Presidential candidates stood on a stepladder to peer above the facility’s fence.

Immigration lawyers and advocates denounced the facility’s “military-style” environment, such as 5-minute showers and cavernous rooms lined with hundreds of bunk beds. The shelter also was scrutinized for its connections to former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly. He previously had served on the board of the firm that owns private contractor Comprehensive Health Services, which ran the facility. And after leaving the White House at the end of 2018, he rejoined the company. 

Facing a public relations crisis, Lynn Johnson, assistant secretary for the federal Administration for Children and Families, told members of Congress in July that the agency planned to phase out these temporary camps – known as “influx shelters” – by 2020. 

But now, just over five months after Johnson spoke to Congress, the Trump administration appears to be reversing its decision. Sources confirmed to the Miami Herald’s Monique O. Madan that the Homestead facility could reopen later this year. 

The reversal comes after advocates and child welfare experts have spoken against the government’s use of influx shelters. Immigrant children, they argue, ideally should be placed in small, licensed group homes instead of large temporary shelters, where they are less likely to get individualized care. At Homestead, for instance, many children reported delays in medical attention and no access to legal services.  

Influx shelters are used during peak immigration periods when the government’s regular shelter system can’t contain the number of children in detention. Unlike the regular shelters, influx shelters are exempt from state oversight and can house thousands of children at a time. At its peak, Homestead’s child population reached nearly 4,000 in the spring, making it the largest shelter for unaccompanied youth in the United States.

Instead of influx shelters, the government said it would expand its network of smaller shelters. It has awarded about $800 million in contracts in the last year, but reporting by us and others has shown that many providers have long histories of abuse or little experience in caring for vulnerable children. In North Carolina, for example, the U.S. government awarded $4 million to a children’s group home even though the state revoked its license for a series of violations, including underqualified staff and reports of abuse.  

It’s unclear whether the problems in the expansion are related to the possible reopening of Homestead. 

From Madan’s story:

If the center does reopen, it’s still unclear what company would operate it since Caliburn International’s contract ended on Nov. 30. Caliburn – which was awarded the contract without competition around the same time that President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, joined the company’s board of advisers – managed the facility for unaccompanied migrant children ages 13 to 17 since 2018. If the facility does reopen, a new contract would have to be solicited. 

“Who gets the contract will be a mystery. Caliburn could be awarded again or it could be someone completely new,” the source added.

Read the story here.
 

GOVERNMENT WINS A FAMILY SEPARATION RULING 

The federal judge who reunited hundreds of migrant families by striking down Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy ruled this week against the ACLU’s complaint that families were continuing to be separated without sufficient evidence.

In June 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the Trump administration to stop separating families “absent a determination that the parent is unfit or presents a danger to the child.”

But last July, the American Civil Liberties Union claimed the government was using this condition broadly to separate hundreds more families. According to its court filing, more than 900 additional children were split up from parents on the basis of several factors, including minor criminal records or unsubstantiated gang affiliations.

We wrote about one of those cases last January. Border officers split up a Salvadoran father from his two children based on an unsubstantiated claim that he was involved with the gang MS-13. Six months later, he was released and reunited with his children. ProPublica later filled in more details of the family’s ordeal with an in-depth story from the perspective of the father’s attorney.

The ACLU asked Sabraw to narrow the government’s power to separate families. But in a 26-page ruling Monday, Sabraw explained that he saw no evidence that the government was systematically splitting up families based on “allegations or intuition.”

In response to cases in which the separation was based on an unsubstantiated gang affiliation, Sabraw reasoned that border officials have limited information during the intake process. He pointed out that families eventually were reunified when their lawyers presented evidence refuting gang claims.

“Plaintiffs invite the Court to engage in prospective oversight of Defendants’ separation decisions, but that invitation warrants caution,” Sabraw wrote. “It is an invitation that is potentially massive in scope, (and) invades an area that is particularly within the province of the Executive Branch to secure the Nation’s border.”

Read the ruling here.
 

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. The U.S. government is collecting DNA from immigrants in custody as part of a new pilot program launched on the southern and northern borders. (The New York Times)

The information will be added to a national criminal database run by the FBI. According to a memo released by the Department of Homeland Security, refusing to submit to DNA swabbing could lead to a misdemeanor criminal charge. The program was launched in Eagle Pass, Texas, and at the Canadian border near Detroit. 

The kicker: Stephen Kang, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, questioned whether the U.S. was creating “a DNA bank of immigrants that have come through custody for no clear reason.” “It raises a lot of very serious, practical concerns, I think, and real questions about coercion," Kang said.

2. The Border Patrol is holding families for several days in its custody, despite a federal law that says they should be released within 72 hours. (BuzzFeed News)

Lawyers for two asylum-seeking families say the parents and children have been held at a border facility in Donna, Texas, for longer than federal law allows. One family has been held since Dec. 30 and the other since Jan. 2.  

The kicker: It's unlikely these two families will be released into the U.S. to await an immigration court hearing. The families are expected to be deported from the southern border to Guatemala, under a "safe third country" deal the Trump administration made to send asylum-seekers to the Central American country instead. One of the few ways people can be exempted from the program is if they can prove to an asylum officer that they'd "more likely than not" be persecuted or tortured in Guatemala, a high threshold to meet.

3. A civil war in El Salvador tore a graduating senior class apart. Now in their late 50s, a high school reunion brought them together again. (Los Angeles Times)  

Many students of the National Institute of Usulutan’s graduating class of 1978 left El Salvador as the country erupted into a civil war that claimed the lives of more than 75,000. Other graduates stayed behind and witnessed the aftermath of death squads and violence. In November, Times reporter Brittny Mejia went to El Salvador to attend their 41-year high school reunion.  

The kicker: Now, the former students drank Golden beer and blasted La Sonora Dinamita, the music drowning out the crashing waves. Two best friends gossiped about their lives. Others talked about children pursuing master’s and doctorates and showed pictures of their grandkids. A man and woman walked along the gray sand, searching for seashells. They were a couple once, a lifetime ago. Today, one is married to someone else. They made a pact on that sweet afternoon: If either of them was in a wheelchair at the next reunion, the other would push it.

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

– Laura C. Morel

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.