Officials with the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to NBC that the temporary facility currently housing 326 children in Tornillo will be closed Friday, July 13.
HHS say the facility is currently housing 326 children consisting of 14 girls who are separated from the boys. Twenty-three of the children were separated from their children at the border, according to Congressman Beto O’Rourke who toured the facility on Saturday.
The breakdown of children located in 22 tents on the facility, two of which exclusively house girls:
- 117 – Honduras
- 40 – El Salvador
- 162 – Guatemala
- 3 – Mexico
- 4 – from other countries.
JUST IN: @CalNBC and @JoyAnnReid describe what they saw during their tour of the Tornillo detention facility for migrant kids that ended moments ago. pic.twitter.com/0So0p5n5hI— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 25, 2018
The remaining children arrived in the United States unaccompanied.
The shelter is operated by BCFS, a contractor hired by the United States government to erect the facility. BCFS was given a 30-day contract which will expire July 14. The incident commander at the facility stated that the “shelter would not have been necessary without the separations,” and that “the crisis was made as the result of the decision to separate the kids.”
He went on to say, “separation should never have happened. The process is flawed and it harmed the kids.”
Last week, the Pentagon confirmed that Fort Bliss was one of four finalists for military bases slated to possibly house migrants. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday that two military bases had been selected, but declined to identify them publicly.
The number of potential migrants who would potentially be housed at Fort Bliss has not yet been announced, but the Pentagon stated as many as 20,000 unaccompanied children could be sheltered at the military bases.
