Report: Trump Admin Reducing Services For Unaccompanied Minors In US Shelters
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - The Trump administration is reportedly cutting back on the services it offers unaccompanied minors in US shelters.
English classes, legal aid, and recreational programs, like soccer, are all on the chopping block, according to The Washington Post. In an email obtained by the Post, US officials said the program that shelters minors who crossed the border is running out of money and they must focus on essential services.
The Homestead temporary shelter is home for more than two thousand of those children.
What do these changes mean for the children in Homestead?
Likely no more time for soccer, which activists who protest the operation say is the only time the kids see the outdoors.
"It is good they allow the kids to play soccer," said activist Martin Levine. "Teenagers have to do something and it is interesting that if they do not allow them to play soccer, maybe it is because they do not want us waving at the children."
Activists say the budget cuts will likely be the basis for a lawsuit.
"We already know from the Flores case, because the children went through trauma in their home country," said Levine. "They went through trauma coming to the border and they think they are going to get refuge and asylum."
On Tuesday, US Reps. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Donna Shalala, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz called for the closure of the Homestead Temporary Shelter and for the transition of the children being held there to smaller facilities managed by non-profit organizations better equipped to care for them and transition to family or sponsors more quickly.
"The Homestead child detention facility has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the Trump Administration. Reports of dangerous and scarring conditions are becoming too common. As of June 1, the 2019 hurricane season has begun, and neither the Administration nor the company operating the facility has a hurricane evacuation plan in place. When I first visited the facility, I was shocked and heartbroken at the prison-like conditions children are being detained in. Sadly, those conditions have only worsened as they continue to cram more children into already-limited spaces," said Mucarsel-Powell in a statement.
"It's time to shutter the so-called 'temporary emergency' Homestead detention center. The ever expanding numbers and lengths of stay there are neither temporary nor emergent. The Trump administration must finally provide these young people with humane living conditions that treat them with dignity, ensure basic human rights, and provide comprehensive support and services," said Wasserman Schultz.
The Congresswomen's call for a shutdown of the Homestead Temporary Shelter follows the recent release of court documents that detail descriptions of psychologically isolating, "prison-like" conditions the children endure at Homestead.
