WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st December, 2018) Temporary shelters for unaccompanied children who illegally cross the US border, including a tent city in a desert, would be forced to close under legislation introduced on Thursday by two members of Congress following a visit to one such facility in the US state of Texas.
"It was absolutely chilling to see children locked up in a desolate, isolated tent prison in the desert," Senator Jeff Merkley said in a joint press release with fellow cosponsor Congresswoman Judy Chu.
The legislation would prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from maintaining or operating any temporary emergency shelter, defined as any unlicensed care provider facility that serves unaccompanied alien children.
"What I saw and learned in Tornillo [Texas] was shocking and outrageous," Chu said. "Thousands of children who fled horrors and endured a difficult journey are being housed in a tent city in the desert, watched over by staff who have not had to go through a background check, and forbidden from even walking from tent to tent without adult supervision."
About 2,800 children are incarcerated at the Tornillo camp, where the vast majority of long-term child detainees have sponsors who have stepped forward and offered to host them in the United States - most of whom are family members, the release said.
About 1,300 of those sponsors have already cleared a background check, the release added.
