A facility in Houston containing girls who crossed the border into the United States alone was being closed and the girls were being evicted, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported Saturday.
Some 450 girls had been held since April 1 at an Emergency Intake Center for Unaccompanied Children (EIS), operated by the National Association of Christian Churches (NAACC), near the Bush Intercontinental Airport.
“The NACC EIS in Houston and other Emergency Intake Centers are used as a temporary measure,” HHS said in a statement.
Representatives of FIEL, a Houston-based immigrant rights group, praised the eviction of the girls, who according to FIEL director Cesar Espinosa are between 13 and 17 years old, although they had doubts about the reasons for the measure.
Espinosa said that an incident was recorded at the center on Friday night and a FIEL employee saw police officers and ambulances outside the place, but could not determine what had happened.
“It seemed that there was a lot of confusion about what was happening,” said Espinosa, who translated the description of the scene narrated in Spanish by employee Alain Cisneros. “The people there seemed to be in a sad posture, with their heads down and they seemed to wipe away tears.”
In the center there were more than 400 minors.
Houston police did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the matter Saturday. And a call to the National Association of Christian Churches went unanswered.
Espinosa, who had toured the center, said the girls were housed in a warehouse.
“There was really no room for social distancing. They were only allowed to get up from their cot to go to the bathroom and showers,” she added.
“Everything brought was for temporary use. The showers were temporary, the bathrooms were temporary, so this space was not equipped to accommodate anyone, much less girls,” said Espinosa.
HHS indicated that about 130 of the girls have plans to be released to a sponsor, usually a parent or relative, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) will seek to find a sponsor for the remaining minors.
Texas child welfare officials recently said they received three complaints of alleged abuse and neglect at a facility in San Antonio containing more than 1,600 immigrant teens who crossed the southern border.
Last month, the US government stopped taking immigrant teens to a facility in Midland amid questions about the safety of those emergency facilities.
HHS has rushed open large facilities to house migrant children in the Southwest amid a marked increase in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border.
The agency’s lack of capacity during the surge in border crossings at the start of President Joe Biden’s administration caused minors to wait sometimes for weeks in overcrowded and unsuitable Border Patrol centers.
Thousands of Central American migrants are living in shelters in Ciudad Juárez after being duped by “coyotes”.