US plans to house migrant children at former boarding school

According to a U.S. official who spoke to CBS News, the Biden administration will start housing up to 800 unaccompanied migrant children at a former boarding school in Greensboro, North Carolina. The facility, which used to the home of the American Hebrew Academy, is set to open to the migrants in August.

With 800 beds, the campus will become the government’s largest active housing facility for unaccompanied minors. The facility includes more than two dozen buildings, sport fields and an athletic center on a green campus near a lake.

The former boarding school will be opened as an “influx care facility,” a term the Department of Health and Human Services uses to describe emergency housing sites the department sets up during a spike in migrant children arrivals along the southern border. The children, ages 13-17, will be offered educational instruction, recreation, mental health support and medical services.

Another influx care facility at Fort Bliss in Texas has the capacity to house up to 500 migrant children. However, the department has sought to minimize its use of this facility after it was dogged with reports of substandard conditions and child depression in 2021. 

Neha Desai, a lawyer at the National Center for Youth Law, said the government is relying too heavily on influx care facilities. She said HHS should instead use shelters licensed by state child welfare authorities.

“This protracted and inappropriate reliance on unlicensed facilities undermines the commitment to placement in licensed facilities and moreover, undermines the best interests of children,” Desai said.

According to government records, HHS housed fewer than 5,800 migrant children on Sunday, June 25. That’s the lowest number during the Biden administration, as well as a nearly 75% drop from a peak of 22,000 minors in the spring of 2022.