The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services plans to shut down an emergency migrant facility set up at the Long Beach Convention Center to house migrant children by August.
Temporary migrant facilities were set up at various locations in California and beyond for children who arrived unaccompanied at the U.S.-Mexico border. The children were taken to the so-called intake centers until they could be reunited with family or placed with sponsors.
Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia wrote on Twitter that nearly 1,000 children who were housed at the Long Beach Convention Center have been reunited with relatives and sponsors in the United States, and officials are expected to close the intake center within two months.
Though the emergency migrant facility at the Convention Center is set to close, Title 42—the root cause of the increase in unaccompanied minors at the border—remains.
Immigrant children are more likely to gain entry to the U.S. if they cross the border alone
Title 42 was enacted in 1944, and was used for the first time during the presidency of Donald Trump.
The policy gives immigration officials, including border patrol agents, the authority to immediately expel anyone who’d normally be taken into custody and kept in a group setting while their case is processed, purportedly to avoid the spread of infectious diseases.
This includes the vast majority of asylum seekers, who are usually taken to crowded facilities run by Customs and Border Patrol once they’re discovered at the border.
As reported by U.S. News, over 50 public health officials have asked the Center for Disease Control to rescind Title 42, writing in a letter that the order did not protect public health. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees followed suit, calling upon the Biden administration to lift Title 42 in a statement last month.
“We should be looking at rescinding Title 42 and fully restoring access to asylum at our borders,” Mayor Robert Garcia said during a congressional subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, April 27.
The law forces refugee families to make an impossible choice: stay together and risk losing their lives, or send their children across the U.S. border to reach safety alone.
“The Trump-era policy of turning away families at the border is still in effect, and the only way that these young people were allowed to come in, is if they came by themselves,” Jeffrey Hoku of By Any Means Necessary Los Angeles said during a protest outside the Long Beach Convention Center on Saturday, May 8.
If these children had attempted to enter with their parents or other adult family members, they would have been immediately turned away under Title 42.
“Our top priority should be to address the underlying reasons why these temporary facilities were needed in the first place.”
—Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia at a Congressional subcommittee hearing in April 2021
“Our top priority should be to address the underlying reasons why these temporary facilities were needed in the first place. With additional resources and immigration reform efforts, we can prevent the need for these types of shelters, period,” Garcia told the subcommittee.
Asylum seeking families are routinely blocked from legal ports of entry under Title 42, and if they then decide to cross into the U.S. together without permission and are caught they are sent back to Mexico or their countries of origin.
From Oct. 2020 to May 2021, 80,325 unaccompanied minors were apprehended.
After entering the country by themselves, these children are eventually sent to emergency intake sites, like the one at the Long Beach Convention Center. Currently, 690 children are housed at the center.
"These sites should not replace immigration reforms," Garcia said at the congressional subcommittee hearing.
A DHHS official said during a court hearing about custody conditions for migrant children Tuesday that four of the country’s emergency shelters will be closing by August, including two in California. A center at the San Diego Convention Center is expected to close in mid-July.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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