(Bailey) "This is Obama's Government doing the dumping of kids, not the State of Arizona".
PHOENIX (AP) — Angry about the
federal government sending from Texas to Arizona immigrants who are in
the country illegally, Arizona officials say they are rushing federal
supplies to a makeshift holding center in the southern part of the state
that's housing hundreds of migrant children and is running low on the
basics.
Gov. Jan
Brewer's spokesman, Andrew Wilder, said Friday that conditions at the
holding center are so dire that federal officials have asked the state
to immediately ship the medical supplies to the center in Nogales.
A
Homeland Security Department official told The Associated Press that
about 700 children were sleeping on plastic cots Friday and about 2,000
mattresses have been ordered, and portable toilets and showers have been
brought to the holding center — a warehouse that has not been used for
detention in years.
The
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no
authorization to discuss the matter publicly, said the Nogales holding
center opened for children because the Department of Health and Human
Services had nowhere to turn.
"They became so overwhelmed and haven't kept up with planning," the official said.
U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has said the immigrants were
mostly families from Central America fleeing extreme poverty and
violence.
The Homeland
Security official said the number of children at the warehouse was
expected to double to around 1,400. The warehouse has a capacity of
about 1,500.
The station
began housing children flown from South Texas last Saturday. About 400
were scheduled to arrive Friday but, due to mechanical issues with the
planes, only about 60 came, the Homeland Security official said.
Saturday's flights were canceled, also due to mechanical problems. There
are flights scheduled through mid-June.
Federal
authorities plan to use the Nogales facility as a way station, where
the children will be vaccinated and checked medically. They will then be
sent to facilities being set up in Ventura, California, San Antonio,
Texas, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
The
Homeland Security official said that the children would be moved out of
the Nogales site as soon as Health and Human Services finds places for
them. But the official said: "As quickly as we move them out, we get
more. We believe this is just a start."
The children being held in Nogales are 17 or younger. The official estimated three of every four were at least 16.
Wilder said reports from
consulates that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was stopping
the program to fly migrant families to Arizona and then bus them to
Phoenix were incorrect. Instead, the program that has shipped unknown
thousands of adult migrants and their children to Arizona since last
month shows no sign of stopping, he said.
"The
adults, the adults with children, families — that continues unfettered
and we have no idea where they are going," Wilder said.
In
a statement Friday, Homeland Security officials said "appropriate
custody determinations will be made on a case by case basis" for
migrants apprehended in South Texas. The department declined to comment
on the reports that the program of flying migrant families to Arizona
was being halted.
Homeland
Security started flying immigrants to Arizona from the Rio Grande Valley
in Texas last month after the number of immigrants, including more than
48,000 children traveling on their own, overwhelmed the Border Patrol
there.
The immigrant children
were flown from Texas, released in Arizona, and told to report to an
ICE office near where they were traveling within 15 days.
Brewer
sent an angry letter to President Barack Obama on Monday demanding that
the program of dropping off families at bus stations in Phoenix stop
immediately. She called the program dangerous and unconscionable, asked
for details and demanded to know why state authorities weren't consulted
or even informed.
The governor said she hadn't received a response to her letter by Friday.
"I
have reached out to Federal Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson for
answers. Meanwhile, I reiterate my call on President Obama to secure our
southern border and terminate this operation immediately," Brewer said
in a statement.
Brewer's
staff spent Friday in a series of calls with officials from FEMA,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security.
Wilder
said FEMA's Region 9 administrator was being sent to the holding center
in Nogales on Saturday to oversee efforts to deal with the hundreds of
arriving children.
The
federal emergency supplies are held in Arizona warehouses, and Wilder
said the state is working to send them to the holding center.
On
Friday night, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that young
lawyers and paralegals are being sought for the community service
program AmeriCorps to provide legal assistance in immigration
proceedings to children who come to the U.S. illegally. Officials say
about 100 lawyers and paralegals will be enrolled as members of
AmeriCorps in a new division called "justice AmeriCorps."
Immigration
officials can immediately return Mexican immigrants to the border, but
they are much more hard-pressed to deal with Central American migrants
who illegally cross into the U.S. In recent months, waves of migrants
from nations south of Mexico have arrived in Texas.
The
Homeland Security official said that legally, only their parents or
guardians can take custody if the government makes the children eligible
for release.
Officials in
Central America and Mexico have noticed a recent increase in women and
children crossing the border. Father Heyman Vazquez, the director of a
migrant shelter in Huixtla in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, said
he and others advise children that it's too dangerous. Yet, Vazquez is
seeing more and more youths heading north.
"I
remember a little boy of 9 years old and I asked if he was going to go
meet someone and he told me 'No, I'm just going hand myself over because
I hear they help kids," Vazquez said.
The
perception that some immigrants could be getting a free pass into the
U.S. could lead to more attempts to cross the border. Illegal
immigration increased heavily under a "catch-and-release" strategy
during the George W. Bush administration. Under that policy the
government issued notices to appear in immigration court to migrants
from countries other than Mexico until Bush stopped the practice.
Federal
officials established a 210-mile stretch of the Texas-Mexico border as a
zero-tolerance zone for illegal immigration. Instead of merely getting
sent back home, migrants were arrested, prosecuted and sometimes
sentenced to prison before being formally kicked out of the country. By
August 2006, border agents in the Del Rio, Texas, sector said daily
arrests had dropped from 500 to fewer than 100.
___
Spagat reported from Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.
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