Trump Administration Detaining More Immigrant Children in Hotels

Read also: US Government to Reject New DACA Applications

Most children who cross the border without permission are supposed to go to Health and Human Services shelters that are licensed by states, offer schooling and legal services, and eventually place children with family sponsors.

Instead, the Trump administration is holding children in hotels or Border Patrol facilities for days, sometimes weeks, before expelling them.

At least 2,000 children who came to the US without a parent have been sent back to their home countries, though officials haven’t updated the total since late June.

Immigration authorities say “transportation specialists” from the private contractor MVM Inc. care for children in hotels.

ICE has described them as “non-law enforcement staff members trained to work with minors and to ensure that all aspects of the transport or stay are compliant”.

The agency declined to say whether they undergo FBI background checks.

The federal government compiled the new data as part of the Flores settlement agreement that governs the treatment of immigrant children in custody.

The report says children are being housed in more than 25 hotels, up from three last month.

In court filings, the Trump administration says children in hotels are given medical care and temperature checks every four hours.

Surfaces are sanitized and meals from local restaurants are served three times a day, plus snacks, the government says.

As first reported by ProPublica, the government says it expels children detained in hotels only after they test negative for Covid-19.

The AP interviewed two fathers from Haiti who were detained with their wives and infant children in July at the Hampton Inn & Suites in McAllen, Texas.

In addition to Verty, the AP is identifying the second father, Paul, only by his first name because he has a pending immigration case in the US.

Both said the hotel had good meals, showers and comfortable beds, unlike a border detention center where they were first held separately from their families and unable to shower for days.