WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th March, 2021) The Biden administration is considering housing unaccompanied migrant children in a military base in the US state of Virginia as their growing numbers put the existing capacities to the limit, Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press briefing.
"The Secretary [of Defense Lloyd Austin] was supportive of having HSS [US Department of Health and Human Services] visit Fort Lee to examine and do a site survey," Kirby told reporters on Friday.
Experts from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) visited Fort Lee, a US Army facility near Richmond, earlier this week about the possibility of accommodating migrant children there but have not yet submitted a request to do so.
Kirby promised that the Defense Department will duly consider such a request and make "the best decision we can," adding tat no other bases were surveyed for this purpose.
As of February 18, there were about 6,800 unaccompanied children under the care of the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement.
