Migrant facility in Houston suddenly closes after a death
An emergency intake site (EIS) that housed 450 to 500 unaccompanied minors, all-female, abruptly closed Saturday in Houston. This followed an incident Friday night. A “flurry of activity” was seen Saturday as buses arrived and left the shelter with the girls. Boxes and computers were seen being carried out by workers. An adult staffer from HHS suddenly died Friday night at the shelter.
Authorities cite privacy policies and declined to comment on the staffer’s death. The transfer of the girls is not related to the death, authorities say. The agency isn’t giving details on why the girls are being moved.
A brief statement was released by HHS.
“Today, HHS announced that all of the children in HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) care at the Emergency Intake Site (EIS) for Unaccompanied Children at the National Association of Christian Churches site in Houston, Texas (NACC Houston) will be immediately unified with sponsors or transferred to an appropriate ORR facility,” agency officials said in a statement released Saturday.
The question is, why? Coming immediately after a sudden death on the premises sure looks suspicious. The girls arrived only two weeks ago. The National Association of Christian Churches (NACC) partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Refugee Resettlement to open the facility to ease the horrendous situation of overcrowding on the southern border. An HHS official reported that 130 of the 450 girls at the site already have plans to be united with a sponsor. The others are being moved to different facilities.
Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha (FIEL), an “immigrant-led civil rights organization”, according to its Twitter bio, released a video of some activity outside the facility on Friday night. The video is narrated by a Spanish speaker but you can see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and movement.
Executive director of FIEL, Ceaser Espinosa, said the conditions inside the warehouse were ‘inappropriate for anyone, especially young girls’, who range in age from 13-17 years old. He added that employees of the facility would only let the teens get out of their cots a few times a day to shower and use the restroom.
Fiel member Alan Cisnero said while he was out with his family on Friday night, he noticed a large amount of first responders arriving to the facility. He said he then proceeded to see what the issue was, however officials told him they couldn’t share much information regarding who was involved in the incident.
Espinosa added that the facility actually had 500 girls on roster at the time of Friday night’s incident, meaning they were right at capacity. Due to the amount of girls, he said they were unable to properly social distance inside the warehouse.
“The NACC Houston EIS and other Emergency Intake Sites are intended for use as a temporary measure,” DHS officials said.
The reason for the abrupt clearing out of the facility has still not been given. Maybe it is because the facility wasn’t suited for the teenage girls. HHS cited “continuity of care under conditions that meet our strict standards of care in ORR state-licensed shelters, the Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility or Emergency Intake Sites where beds have become available.”
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The pastor who heads the National Association of Christian Churches in Houston calls it a “sudden and unjustified” removal, and likens it to a drug raid. He said the government “begged” him to take the girls then refused to reimburse for expenses, telling him to contact attorneys to help him with his claims. He also said he was first told he would receive boys but then discovered the teens were girls.
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A spokesperson for Houston Mayor Turner said that the White House notified the mayor that the facility was no longer needed. It looks like the facility is no longer needed because Ortega invited journalists in to cover the story of the facility and because the federal government was not honoring its contract with him and reimbursing him for expenses.
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It gives you an idea of what a mess Biden has created on the border and in dealing with the migrants. It is one of the biggest screwups by an administration in recent memory.
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