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US military bases not yet needed to house migrant kids
WASHINGTON, July 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A US government agency has decided that, for now at least, it doesn’t need to ask the Pentagon to provide thousands of beds for immigrant children, an official said Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had been assessing four US military sites near the US border with Mexico to potentially house children detained under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
The controversial clampdown included separating children from their parents or relatives at the border, triggering outrage in the US and abroad. The practice has now been ended.
Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas was one of four sites HHS inspectors looked at to accommodate a surge of immigrant children, but no formal request to install beds is likely for the immediate future, HHS spokesman Mark Weber told AFP.
“We don’t need the beds,” Weber said.
“There is there is no plan to use Goodfellow at this time.”
For the most part, child detainees are now being released to suitable sponsors in the US, Weber added.
The controversial separations began in May, when migrants illegally entering the United States were detained en masse, and their children taken to detention centers and shelters.
The pressure led to President Donald Trump demanding an end to the separations in June, six weeks after the “zero tolerance” policy kicked into high gear.
The federal government is scrambling to reunite kids it separated from their parents, under a court order.
BSS/AFP/AU/08:15 hrs