The large vacant warehouse in downtown Houston has housed women and families who were once homeless and adults displaced by Hurricane Harvey.
Until now, however, it has never sheltered small children who are on their own in a strange country, many of them separated from their parents who were jailed after illegally crossing the southern border.
Southwest Key Programs, a Texas nonprofit that has a lucrative contract with the federal government to care for thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children, confirmed Friday it has signed a lease with the owner of the warehouse at 419 Emancipation Ave.
Its application with the state requests a general residential operating license to hold up to 240 children between the ages of “0 to 17.” Several stakeholders who work with immigrant minors said they have been told the facility would largely serve “tender age” children who are younger than 12, as well as pregnant and nursing teenagers.
[…]
Federal officials said Friday about 2,000 children have been separated from their parents between mid-April, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new zero-tolerance policy, and the end of May.
The sudden surge has overwhelmed the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which now has more than 11,400 children in their care in about 100 shelters across the country that are almost full. The ORR has issued calls to agencies that run such facilities for the government to see if they can increase their capacity and are considering housing children in tent-like structures on military bases, including in Texas.
“They are being required to house increasingly large numbers of very young children … who should have never gone to (the agency) in the first place,” said Jennifer Podkul, director of policy for Kids in Need of Defense, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that provides services to unaccompanied minors.
Keeping such young children in a residential facility like the one proposed in Houston would represent a sharp shift from previous practice.
“My understanding is that the kids would be sleeping at this facility in Houston, and that’s surprising and would be a different structure than we’ve ever seen before for this type of population,” she said. “This would be the first one.”
Small children and pregnant teenagers are usually placed with foster parents who work with specialized organizations that contract with the federal government to provide such care. The minors spend their nights in a foster home and their days in a licensed facility for children, where they are provided services such as medical and legal screenings.
“Traditionally the government has relied on families and supported homestays for this population because of their special needs,” Podkul said. “Very young children can’t sleep through the night all the time. They have physical limitations because of their size. … I don’t know how you provide for that in such a large facility.”
This so-called “shelter” would be one of these:
In South Texas, pediatricians started sounding the alarm weeks ago as migrant shelters began filling up with younger children separated from their parents after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
The concerned pediatricians contacted Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and she flew to Texas and visited a shelter for migrant children in the Rio Grande Valley. There, she saw a young girl in tears. “She couldn’t have been more than 2 years old,” Kraft says. “Just crying and pounding and having a huge, huge temper tantrum. This child was just screaming, and nobody could help her. And we know why she was crying. She didn’t have her mother. She didn’t have her parent who could soothe her and take care of her.”
The number of migrant children in U.S. government custody is soaring — partly the result of a policy decision by the Trump administration to separate children from their parents who are being prosecuted for unlawful entry. Hundreds of the children being held in shelters are under age 13.
Medical professionals, members of Congress and religious leaders are calling on the Trump administration to stop separating migrant families. They question whether these shelter facilities are appropriate for younger children.
[…]
Pediatricians and immigrant advocates are warning that separating migrant children from their families can cause “toxic stress” that disrupts a child’s brain development and harms long-term health.
At the facility in South Texas, Kraft says, the staff told her that federal regulations prevented them from touching or holding the child to soothe her.
While shelter managers and other experts say there is no such rule, Kraft says the confusion underscores why these shelters are not the right place for young children — especially kids who have fled dangerous countries and who have just been separated from their parents. “By separating parents and children, we are doing irreparable harm to these children. The long-term concern of what we call toxic stress is that brains are not developed efficiently or effectively,” Kraft says. “And these children go on to have behavior problems, to have long-term medical problems.”
This is cruel and inhumane, and it is being done as a matter of deliberate policy. What kind of people want to separate parents from their children like this? CM Robert Gallegos, in whose district this would be, wrote this on Facebook:
The mayor will host a press conference early next week regarding the federal government’s proposal. While the City was not involved in the decision or notified beforehand, we will advocate for these children and do all we can to ensure they are cared for with compassion and dignity. Children should be with their families, not warehoused in a detention center hundreds of miles away from their parents. The Trump administration’s inhumane policy of separating families is shameful and goes against the very values our nation was founded on.
Sen. Sylvia Garcia released this statement:
This week it was discovered that federal authorities, in conjunction with contracted private partners, have signed a lease to open a baby jail to detain child immigrants just east of downtown Houston. State Senator Sylvia Garcia issued the following statement in reaction:
“Now is the time to gather together to stop this baby jail before a single child seeking refuge is locked up in our city. The Trump administration has made it clear that it will rip children away from their parents despite legal and child development experts telling them that it is unnecessary and known to cause lifelong harm. No law requires this. Humanity demands compassion. We must say as a community with one voice that jailing children away from their parents is wrong, it should not happen anywhere, and we as Houstonians will not allow it to happen here. Not now. Not ever.”
We need to hear from all of our elected officials. This is an abomination, and we cannot let it happen.
As General Hayden stated there is a history of separating families.
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/hayden-immigrant-child-separations/2018/06/16/id/866584/
The invasion happening on our Southern border is a war, and these kids are, sadly, casualties of war, human shields. The Palestinians should be proud that their guerilla war tactics have been adopted across the world.
What we need to do is jail the parents for illegal entry to dissuade their countrymen from trying to invade the US also, but quickly send the children back to their closest relatives. They should be in a US detention center no longer than it takes to arrange their passage back to wherever they came from.
Could we all agree that an expedited deportation process for the pawns, the kids, is a non partisan necessity we can all back?
Manny,
Cute link, but do you really see no difference between people who forcibly removed people from WHERE THEY BELONG and having a procedure in place for eventually getting people back to where they belong? Of course you don’t.
Manny,
Were you OK when the Obama regime, instead of keeping the kids safe while the deportation proceedings wound their way through the courts, just gave kids to human traffickers?
http ://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/01/hhs-handed-child-migrants-to-human-traffickers.html
(close space after http)
Bill, I thought you were a libertarian. What convinced you to become a statist? https://www.lp.org/issues/immigration/
Voter:
Libertarianism isn’t a suicide pact. In a libertarian world, there would be no government funded welfare programs, so citizens and immigrants alike would be left to sink or swim on their own, or avail themselves of private charity.
The whole problem with illegal immigration is, it brings in masses of unskilled poor who tax our social welfare institutions, both in the short and long term. Don’t we have enough kids born on Medicaid as it is without importing even more parents who will increase those numbers?
What is so wrong with people having kids and paying for those kids themselves? Paying for the hospital delivery, the medical care, the food, the clothing……we need to figure out to how to have fewer kids born into poverty in the US, and a good start is to stop importing poverty.
https ://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-immigrant-births-at-your-expense/
(close the spaces after the https)
https ://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-42-percent-of-new-medicaid-signups-are-immigrants-their-children/article/2556114
If the goal is giving cash payments to foreigners, our tax money would go a lot farther as foreign aid. A dollar in Honduras, for example, stretches a lot farther than it does in the US. If we want to fund hospital deliveries for Honduran women, or feed Honduran children, it would be much cheaper to pay for that in situ.
Bill, do you have medical insurance? Because that is not paying for medical care for yourself. That is the healthy paying for the sick and childbearing.
Many of the children are children of people seeking asylum, which is not a crime.
Why is it that the least kind among us insist that people rely upon the kindness of strangers?
Jules,
First of all, these folks are economic migrants, so they don’t qualify for asylum. It’s not that there is no place in their home country where they can go that they will not be persecuted, it’s that there’s no place in their home country they can go to get freebies.
Second, an asylum claim is an affirmative defense from prosecution.
There’s a law requiring people to wear seat belts in Texas. There’s an affirmative defense to that law that exempts people working for public utilities who make frequent stops as part of their job. This was designed to protect meter readers, mailmen, etc., from prosecution under the seat belt law. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be ticketed and be forced to go through the court process to have their claim adjudicated. This is exactly what making an asylum claim is, an affirmative defense to prosecution. That means they have to go through the legal process, and the legal process is, they get detained, and we don’t allow kids to stay with their detained parents. Is Manafort being allowed to have his kids with him? Manafort has been found guilty of no crime (yet).
I wasn’t aware that the government had locked up Manafort’s minor children. Please tell me more.
Bill, your first paragraph in your reply to me is true, but let me copy and paste the first three paragraphs of that link I posted:
“Libertarians believe that people should be able to travel freely as long as they are peaceful. We welcome immigrants who come seeking a better life. The vast majority of immigrants are very peaceful and highly productive.
Indeed, the United States is a country of immigrants, of all backgrounds and walks of life…some families have just been here for more generations than others. Newcomers bring great vitality to our society.
A truly free market requires the free movement of people, not just products and ideas.”
Trumpism is anathema to libertarian ideals, and most other ideals with which I’m familiar for that matter. But, dropping academics for a moment, it’s not possible to defend what the administration is doing to these families from any perspective other than an authoritarian one.
@Jules & Voter
Don’t waste your time. Bill is an asshole
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/whats-really-happening-asylum-seeking-families-separated/
Texas Monthly story
Bill, no I spoke out against Obama and Adrian Garcia who at one time was the deporting more people than any other sheriff. Unlike you I am consistent in my principles. So take your Russian loving behind and move it to Russia, you will love it there.
Bill is one of those rabbits that will try to change the argument. I quote General Hayden. When Germany conquered countries and did the same to the Jews, I guess it was their fault for being there, right Bill?
You are a racist Bill I have often stated that, you hate brown people, it has nothing to do whether they have papers are not. I have known people like Robert describes you all my life.
But like Trump you spin lies with more lies to what, convince yourself that you are a nice guy?
For the record, Bill, a lot of people think I am an asshole, I am proud that those type of people think of me like that. You are more than welcome to consider me one.
Manny, Bill is a racist. You use the racist comment so much it doesn’t have meaning when you say it. I still believe that you are full of hate. I hope you have peace one day.
Paul why don’t you and your brothers go make some more money from those paperless people.
Paul you love green and you love brown when they are handing green out, I understand it.
Are you a racist Paul, I do believe you may be one Paul, but you are a Trump cult worshiper, so you have claimed in prior posts of supporting the Russian puppet. So I expect nothing less from you.
Paul I don’t call everyone a racist, but there are millions of racists out there starting with the Russian puppet that is sitting at the White House and his cult consists almost entirely of racists, there are exceptions.
So Paul, you are so smart why bring it up when it does not mean anything?
Paul your man god, says I don’t have to be politically correct anymore or does it only apply to his worshipers?
Bill, nice change to another rabbit hole, they made mistakes with about 12 children according to the report. However,
Trump has misplaced nearly 1,500 children, did he have them killed? Did he sell them to child sexual rings? You wouldn’t care they came here illegally, they should know better, why listen to their parents. Blame the parents for trying to survive.
Like I said I have known people like you all my life, I would add Paul to that I have known list.
Want see hate Paul, go no further than a Trump rally. Were you there?
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004533191/unfiltered-voices-from-donald-trumps-crowds.html
Manny,
You and the General fail at logic. For your comparo to work, the Jews would have had to voluntarily leave their houses and get on the trains without any prompting from government officials.
The illegal hordes voluntarily place themselves in this situation. We didn’t scoop them up from their houses in their homeland and take their kids, they came here and rubbed their kids in our faces….human shields They use their kids as human shields. Congratulations! They are the Palestinians of the West. You want a real comparison? There it is.
Also, you toss around ‘racist’. Nice Alinsky tactic from someone actually on record as hoping white people commit suicide with guns. Sorry we haven’t all killed ourselves to make your La Raza ‘reconquista’ dreams come true. Well, not sorry, actually, and I wonder what the many white liberals who populate this board think about how you actually feel about them.
They generally support your cause of open borders, and yet you still want them, and their parents dead, simply because they are white.
Get over yourself, Bill. People are trying to save their children. They are seeking asylum. It has nothing to do with you or your creepy face, which nobody wants anywhere near their children, no matter where they were born.
Manny,
That was a cherry picked compilation of many Trump rallies, not one, as you imply by asking, “were you there?” I saw Trump in The Woodlands, and what I heard and saw was all positive. It was a typical hot Summer day and people waited in line for hours to get in. The heat had whipped everyone, even the few protestors who managed to suffer through the heat. I saw and heard very respectful people. Even the interaction between the protesters and the people in line was polite…..on both sides….some clever banter, but no open hostility. There were a couple of women, I guess, in black burkas talking to some of the Trump supporters. No raised voices, just a civil discussion. That might have made the news, as there were cameras on that group.
Even the protestors driving by yelling “Cheeto” were regarded with amusement, not with hostility. Of course, back then “Cheeto” was still actually funny as a joke.
And I will say, I found the stuff said by the FBI agents and brass in the Horowitz report even more disturbing than I found the stuff said on that video.
Bill you act as this land has always belonged to the white people, those hordes were here long before the Spanish or the Norse got here. This is there land, it was taken from them.
Bill, I don’t allow rabbits to go holes (lies) without responding.
You are a liar Bill, when Paul asked me if I really wished that I said no. You read what makes your racist mind work.
A compilation of many, pick one then Bill, that is hate no matter what you say and you are part of that group of haters, “Illegal Hordes” it is okay for you to dehumanize people but you find it offensive if someone does the same thing to your kind of horde?
The Woodlands event was so peaceful, blah, blah, blah, how peaceful was it https://www.click2houston.com/news/donald-trump-visits-houston-area-friday
Everything you said about me wanting white people dead is a lie, but that is how you and your kind operate. So why do you want all brown people dead Bill? Why do you want people who are sick not to be able to get insurance Bill? Why do you hate Blacks and want them all dead Bill? It is easy to lie Bill, can you prove you don’t want all those things Bill? Like the Russian cheeto you are a liar and a racist. You hate brown people so much that you don’t care if they take 2 year old children from their arms.
Tell me Bill what did they do with those 1,500 children that are missing Bill? Did you participate in their killing or selling Bill? It is easy to lie Bill, you do it all the time.
their land
Bill for the record that is what I wrote
I was completely neutral as to whether guns should be regulated, until I read a Houston Press article that said that old white men like to use them to commit suicide.
http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/gun-control-might-cut-down-on-the-number-of-suicides-among-white-males-10368929
Paul later asked if I read my posts and I replied
Paul, I read my posts, I don’t wish evil or hurt on anyone. But people will be people and believe what they want to believe. Most of my friends are old white men.
But like stated then Bill, people will believe what they want to believe, some people like you will spread lies on what they want to believe.
But you can check it out yourself Bill, http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=85875#comments
But you already know that you are very prone to not telling the truth, tells lies.
In case you didn’t know it Bill, White evil people were taking children from hordes of Native Americans up until about the 1970s.
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/arct.socst.ush.wounded12aschoolsa/taken-from-their-families/#.WycqzCAnaUk
It is still happening Bill, too many whites don’t like brown people or black people, or other people that does not look like them
https://www.npr.org/series/141763531/native-foster-care-lost-children-shattered-families
While I seriously doubt that anything can change your racist believes, here is more about taking children and separating families https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/31/barbaric-americas-cruel-history-of-separating-children-from-their-parents/?utm_term=.316044716752
See Bill the difference between you and me and some others that come here occasionally I read the good and the bad about this country. It is still the best country to be in, but it is far from perfect. I love my country and dislike traitors like Trump and all the Russian loving cult followers of their man god.
Bill Native Americans means they were in what is the United States before the Europeans came. So you won’t confuse your mind and think they are from south of the border. Just like the Jewish people and they got a raw deal they were turned away from this country when they were fleeing the Germans. That was FDR that did that.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/
Since my Native American blood makes me a real American, I wish that people like you had stayed where ever you came from and made those countries great or greater. I forget many of them were criminals in their native lands.
Hey Kuff — I hope you keep on top of this. I’m not in Houston now and the chron site is mostly unreadable due to adds. I hope I can keep coming to your site to follow up on this. On top of the pain and harm this is causing the children and their families, people are trying to make money off the misery of others. There is no reason for this policy and no reason for children to be transported so far away from their parents.
I can only hope that the leaders in Houston can be strong and stop this from happening.
I miss my city and don’t want it to be a part of this tragedy.
Laura Bush says “NO” in her Washington Post op-ed. Perhaps her decency and resolve will serve as a clarion call to other prominent Republicans. Are you listening, Senator Collins?
Laura Bush? Her husband was directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi kids, not to mention permanently separating thousands of US soldiers from their families, all for an elective war that made the world a more dangerous place and actually CAUSED a refugee crisis.
A woman whose husband belongs in Den Hague facing a war crimes trial is now our arbiter of what is moral and just? She needs to pull the log out of her own eye before she criticizes Trump’s mote.
@Bill That was then, this is now, and you don’t take issue with what she’s saying. tbh your lefty persona in this riposte is interesting, but it’s still whataboutism. Having done wrong things in the past in no way excuses participation in wrong things today.
That’s no ‘lefty persona’, that was the libertarian/nationalist position to take, and I took it then and now. Your (not you personally) globalist war mongers, the Bushes, the Clintons, Soros, et al, they supported regime change and laying waste to a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. To his credit, Obama spoke out against that war. Of course my preferred candidate of the time period, Ron Paul vehemently spoke out about it.
Also, I fail to see how the passage of time changes anything. Say in 20 years, Trump starts speaking out about husbands being faithful to their wives and against divorce. Really? That be OK with you? I love Trump, but even I recognize he has no business giving out marital advice….ever. Even the Dems, who recognize Bill Clinton as their elder statesman, recognize he’s not someone to trot out to talk about the pound me too movement, considering his record of rape and sexual assaults.
Like always the rabbit that would be Bill goes into another hole, lie or in this case changes the topic.
Bill is a Trump/Russian lover, there is no way he would ever change but there are many decent people in this country that do listen to reason and have compassion.
Don’t ignore the rabbit that would be Bill, ignoring is not the answer. History has shown as that. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/18/1772671/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Fierce-blowback-on-the-abusive-Trump-immigration-politics-and-the-lying
People like Bill like the North Korean more than they like a Democrat, https://www.thedailybeast.com/kim-jong-un-more-popular-than-pelosi-among-republicans-exclusive-poll-results
I use the word people loosely so that I don’t become like Bill so full of hate of anything that does not look like me.
The US government is morally wrong to cage children. The US government is morally wrong to separate children from their parents. Anyone who excuses it is morally wrong.
Just to prove how much of a Russian rabbit Bill Daniels is, he states that Soros was for regime change in Iraq, here is the truth
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/soros-attacks-bush-policies-in-iraq-1.979661
Like the other Russian cheeto lover Rosanne, they blame Soros for everything, they made him a bogey man among the racists and bigots in this country. Rosanne did appologize to Soros for claiming that he helped the Nazis, but that was an exception.
Jules,
First, we don’t really know if the kids even belong to the adults sneaking them into the country. Human trafficking is a real problem. That’s the point, we know nothing about them….no vetting, because they didn’t appear at a local US Embassy and apply to come here the right way. I also should point out that you are intentionally conflating asylum seekers with all illegal aliens. Second, we remove kids from their accused criminal parents all the time….it’s why we have a CPS or equivalent, in every state in the country. We separate kids to keep them safe, and because kids don’t belong in adult jails. One could make an argument that asylum seekers showing up here with kids from Central America are guilty of de facto child abuse by not claiming asylum in the first friendly country they reach….Guatemala, Belize, or Mexico.
I don’t see you out there protesting CPS taking kid of parents accused of breaking the law. Are you morally wrong for not speaking out about that? It’s the exact same thing, and it’s been going on for years.
@Manny,
I’m going to accept your article, and Soros’ claims therein as truth, and will retract my claim that Soros supported the Iraq War. He does have a solid history of fomenting civil unrest across the world in order to make money, so you can see my confusion as to why he would not enjoy the unrest caused by the Iraq War.
Point: Manny
Bill, is that where Manafort’s children are, CPS?
@Bill Yeah, I could search old Antiwar.com posts and find language very similar to yours there. Trump has so warped the space-time continuum that I do think he could run a relationship advice website after he moves on from his current gig and be taken seriously by a yuuuge audience…myself not included. Be that as it may, the Miller-Trump policy is no less wrong because its defenders are able to cite Clinton, Bush and Obama wrongdoing.
I support bail reform and keeping families together, regardless of place of birth.
But the point is that separating families at the border and caging children is immoral, no matter what other atrocities exist.
Jules:
I laughed out loud! This is the kind of humor this board needs more of.
Voter:
OK, serious question. What exactly are we supposed to do with the kids of people illegally entering our country? We can repatriate Mexican kids after processing them, assuming we can find family members still in Mexico. OTM kids will take longer to repatriate because of the laws we ourselves have enacted. Do you prefer the old policy of ‘catch and release?’ That policy didn’t work out from a standpoint of deporting people who don’t belong here, because they almost never show up for their court dates, instead going underground in the US. That’s also the reason they can’t be sent to extended family or friends here in the US. The government will never see those kids again, as they go underground.
I would prefer to see an expedited removal process for these kids to go back home to their extended family, while they wait for their parents to serve their short jail sentences here for illegal entry. Weren’t you guys jumping for joy to see little Elian Gonzalez repatriated to his father in Cuba? He actually had a legitimate asylum claim. What’s different now?
Jules:
Same question. Kids brought here illegally who have no valid asylum claim (that would be most all of them)…..what do you propose to do with them to ensure they show up to the court proceedings necessary to remove them from the country?
What’s your better idea to solve this problem?
Unless these traffickers you invoke double as wet nurses, it’s safe to say that you have at least one case of a child ripped from his/her mother’s arms. Also if the kids scream and cry when you take them away the accompanying adults, it’s a damn good bet that adult is a parent (or at least a close relative).
This despicable regime currently has 3 contradictory statements going:
A) It’s a deterrent.
B) It’s Democrats’ fault.
C) It’s not even a real policy at all.
Inquiring minds what to know which one you’re going to carry water for.
Keep families together and give them asylum.
So Laura Bush is wrong to condemn this because her husband invaded Iraq without a real justification (we agree on that!) but yet you keep coming here to sell the notion that a lying con artist with a long history (measured in thousands of lawsuits) of fraud and wage theft is really going to look out for the “little guy”. Some beams are bigger than others.
Fly:
I’ll go with A and B. When these people get out of jail for their illegal entry crimes and are repatriated to their home countries, with their traumatized children, their first hand stories will be a cautionary tale to others in their home countries who have similar plans. In other words, don’t come, the open borders welcome of the Bush/Obama years is over. The Americans no longer want random people sneaking in.
I’ll qualify B to include Republicans as having fault, too. Remember when Trump gave his inauguration speech and stared down all the ex presidents in attendance and pretty much told them he was going to clean up their messes? I was so proud to be an American that day.
This is Congress’ fault, generally, because Trump, right up front, Trump told Congress his solution to not only new illegal aliens, but how to save the DACA folks too. Congress failed to provide the immigration bill that Trump himself said he would sign. OK, then Trump has to use the laws that are currently in place to manage the problem, and he’s using the law not only to manage the problem, but to force Congress to act. Yes, these illegal alien kids are being used as leverage, just as the DACA folks are. I make no apologies for that. Their parents are the cause of the problem, we all suffer for the parents’ actions, so hey, their kids can suffer a little bit, too. Americans negatively impacted by illegals are innocent, and we and our children suffer. There’s suffering everywhere, but no tears for American kids, like Jamiel Shaw, because that suffering doesn’t further a narrative.
Keep in mind that Trump’s people don’t want amnesty for the DACA people, but Trump is willing to throw all of us under the bus on that point in order to get a final resolution to this ongoing problem.
By August first Trump and his Gestapo will have about 20,000 children in jail, their only crime is trying to find a better life. Some of them ripped from their mother’s arms as they were breast feeding. Parents being deported without their children. About 1,500 children are missing, the Gestapo cannot find them.
They constantly change topics or most often just lie.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/soros-attacks-bush-policies-in-iraq-1.979661 Only address the 20,000
People like Bill have lost their humanity, if they ever had any. The only bright spot is that only about 1/2 of the Republican base are like Bill.
They = people like Bill