Earlier this year, Texas Impact published a report entitled: No More Business as Usual: Ending Taxpayer Funded Abuse of Unaccompanied Migrant Children on unaccompanied migrant children (“unaccompanied children”) that arrive at the United States border without an adult caretaker and without documentation. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) claims, “ORR promptly places an unaccompanied child in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interests of the child, taking into consideration danger to self, danger to the community, and risk of flight. ORR takes into consideration the unique nature of each child’s situation and incorporates child welfare principles when making placement, clinical, case management, and release decisions that are in the best interest of the child.”
However, our report demonstrated that ORR, being the federal agency charged with sheltering these unaccompanied children, has a practice in Texas of placing them in facilities with histories of child abuse. Their histories were described and adjudicated in a decade-long lawsuit involving state-licensed foster care facilities in Texas, where ordered reforms, to the system and these facilities, have not occurred. Our report also laid out simple, straightforward changes that could be implemented to the contracting process for child detention facilities. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any of the changes that Texas Impact suggested have been implemented.
Further complicating the situation, the federal government has opened temporary facilities and the terminology used to describe these facilities has varied from “decompression shelter” to “emergency” or “pop-up” shelters to Emergency In-take Sites (“EIS”) (e.g., the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas (“KBHCC”) and Fort Bliss, Texas). The purposes of these facilities is to provide temporary housing to unaccompanied children until they are reunited with their families or a sponsor. In Dallas-Fort Worth, there were reports of many good-hearted Texans who volunteered at KBHCC to help uplift and encourage these unaccompanied children, and attempted to help make the best of a terrible situation. Yet, in another blow to the protection of unaccompanied children in Texas, when volunteers at KBHCC witnessed sub-standard conditions for these children and spoke out about them, their volunteer credentials were revoked.
Meanwhile, the conditions, including length of stay, and abuse-suffered by unaccompanied children at the EIS facility in Fort Bliss, Texas resulted in Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-TX) calling for an investigation into the conditions and care provided at that facility. Similar concerns were reported in another EIS facility in Pecos, Texas, resulting in an investigation by the Health and Human Services Inspector General. Additionally, a lawsuit asking the court to enforce the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement (“Flores”) was filed. In part, Flores requires that minors can only be detained in facilities that meet certain standards, and all minors in detention cannot be held more than 20 days. Also, Flores required that third-party facilities caring for unaccompanied children be licensed by a state.
Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden Administration have been at odds on a number of political issues, from climate change and energy policy. The rift between the state and federal administrations has resulted in the best interest of unaccompanied children becoming collateral damage.
The licensing and regulation of facilities housing unaccompanied children in Texas continues to spiral downward. On May 31, 2021 Gov. Abbott made a disaster declaration regarding the number of people “unlawfully crossing the Texas-Mexico border.” Inside the order, Gov. Abbott directed the state to revoke the licenses of the facilities housing the unaccompanied children, as he proclaimed the federal government is responsible for “influx” of migrants in Texas and those individuals, “… threatens to negatively impact state-licensed residential facilities.” Effectively, the licenses would have been revoked prior to September 1.
Before the license revocation went into effect, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission issued an emergency rule, that can stay in effect for 120 days and be renewed for another 60 days, in July that allows these facilities to continue to operate and house the unaccompanied children. Christie Mann, a spokesperson for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, indicated the Texas facilities that contract with ORR will continue to operate without state oversight.
According to an article in the Texas Tribune that is based on state data, there are 4,700 unaccompanied children held in Texas-licensed facilities. Earlier this week, on August 23, in the hearing by the House Appropriations Committee, Jaime Masters, Commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, was asked if there had been an increase in unaccompanied minors in the state-licensed foster care facilities/system, to which she responded, “No, I can’t say that we have.” It is interesting to juxtapose her answer with the reasoning provided by Gov. Abbott in the reasoning for issuing the disaster declaration and revocation of state licenses for these facilities.
What happens next? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicated that Gov. Abbot’s order to revoke licenses violated the United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. It would appear that the Biden Administration and the Gov. Abbott’s office will either amicably resolve their differences or litigation will ensue. Enough is enough. It’s time for our state and national public officials to be more interested in the best interest of the care and well-being of unaccompanied children rather than political positioning and settling political scores.