U.S. reopens temporary facility for migrant children in Texas

A staffer at the Carrizo Springs, Texas, migrant facility.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

The Biden administration is reactivating an emergency migrant child facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, due to an influx of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border and capacity limits at permanent shelters due to COVID-19.

During the Trump administration, the facility was open for one month in the summer of 2019. Today, it will hold up to 700 migrant teens. Mark Weber, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, told The Washington Post the temporary operation is based on the federal emergency management system and will keep migrant kids out of Border Patrol facilities, where holding cells are designed for adults.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.