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Bases to host immigrants

 
Two woman accompany children to the Cayuga Centers in New York, Thursday, June 21, 2018. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he learned on Wednesday that hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents by federal immigration officials are being cared for in the facility. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) NYRD103
Two woman accompany children to the Cayuga Centers in New York, Thursday, June 21, 2018. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he learned on Wednesday that hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents by federal immigration officials are being cared for in the facility. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) NYRD103
Published June 21, 2018

The Defense Department will house up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children on military bases in coming months, a Pentagon official said Thursday, the latest twist in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement effort. The agreement comes after the Department of Health and Human Services made the request.

The children who would be housed on military bases are those who cross the border illegally by themselves, as opposed to those accompanied by adults.

New, makeshift detention facilities are also being envisioned to house thousands of immigrant families that are crossing illegally into the United States following President Trump's executive order on Wednesday, which called for detaining parents and children together instead of separating them.

The request comes as federal agencies on Thursday offered competing and contradictory explanations of what was happening to immigrant families in the hours after Trump's order, leaving it unclear where families were being held and whether they were being prosecuted.

The Pentagon's notification to lawmakers said that officials at Health and Human Services asked the Pentagon to indicate whether it can provide the beds for children at military installations "for occupancy as early as July through December 31, 2018."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., addressed the issue on the Senate floor Thursday morning.

"The Department of Defense has been asked whether it can house 20,000 unaccompanied children between now and the end of the year," he said. "How will that work? Is it even feasible?"

The plan would seemingly have similarities to 2014, when the Obama administration housed about 7,000 unaccompanied children on three military bases. As required under the Economy Act, the memo said, the Defense Department would be reimbursed for all costs.

The sites would be run by HHS employees or contractors working with them. They would provide care to the children, "including supervision, meals, clothing, medical services, transportation or other daily needs," and HHS representatives will be present at each location.

The memo was sent to lawmakers Wednesday after President Donald Trump reversed his administration's unpopular policy to separate children from their parents as they arrived at the southern U.S. border.

The president's executive order directed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to "take all legally available measures" to provide Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen with "any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien families," and the construction of new facilities "if necessary and consistent with law."

The Trump administration spent months planning, testing and defending its family separation system at the border, taking more than 2,500 children from their parents in the six weeks prior to the president's executive order.

The U.S. government has been examining for weeks whether it can use military bases to house migrant children. Representatives from HHS visited three bases in Texas — Fort Bliss, Dyess Air Force Base and Goodfellow Air Force Base — last week to review their facilities for suitability, and were scheduled to review Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas on Wednesday, Davis said.

Asked about the possibility of military bases being involved again, Mattis said Wednesday that the Defense Department would "see what they come up with" in HHS, and that the Pentagon will "respond if requested."

Mattis dismissed concerns about housing migrants on military bases now, noting that the Defense Department has done it on several occasions and for several reasons.

"We have housed refugees," he said. "We have housed people thrown out of their homes by earthquakes and hurricanes. We do whatever is in the best interest of the country."