The Biden government is asking for more federal officials to donate their time on the southern border to help with the increase in unaccompanied immigrant children who have been trapped in overcrowded facilities.
Federal officials would assist the Department of Health and Human Services efforts to place children unaccompanied with a family member and out of US custody, while authorities try to reduce overcrowding, according to a job posting published on Thursday .
US officials have been unable to keep up with the increase in unaccompanied children at the border as they attempted to release them to facilities administered by the HHS Refugee Resettlement Office (ORR), which also had beds. Department of Homeland Security officials have already asked for volunteers to help HHS process children outside the border facilities and speed up the system that leads them to potential sponsors, such as family members, in the United States.
The job posting states that employees who decide to join will “efficiently collect and provide information to the ORR to allow the national Call Center to start contacting parents and family members to expedite the discharge of children to a sponsor. a family member in the United States ”. They would also help DHS and ORR to find children who should be a higher priority based on a “vulnerable category or time in custody CBP”. Employees will be dispatched to emergency entry locations in San Diego, Dallas, San Antonio and potentially to CBP stations.
Employees who assume the role interview children and collect contact information for their family members in the United States and elsewhere. ORR officials are trying to make the unification process more efficient to free up more space in shelter facilities.
“The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is partnering with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support the administration’s urgent efforts to care for and place unaccompanied children who have entered the United States across the southern border,” Kathleen McGettigan , the head of OPM, wrote to the agencies on Thursday.
Earlier this week, HHS officials issued a new “accelerated release” guidance that reduces the often complicated process of releasing children to their parents or guardians if there are no immediate warning signs and the child is not particularly vulnerable, according to the document.
HHS staff will conduct interviews to establish proof of their relationship, along with other steps, and then hand the child over to the parents. HHS employees are then allowed to purchase plane or bus tickets so that sponsors can pick up the children and pay the costs associated with returning home.
Unaccompanied children from Central America who are picked up by Border Patrol agents are usually sent to the HHS Refugee Resettlement Office, where they are housed in shelters across the country as they begin to officially apply for asylum and wait to meet with their families. in US.
Management needs the additional capacity of HHS to help alleviate overcrowding at the Border Patrol facilities, where more than 5,000 unaccompanied children were being held on Wednesday. Many of the children have been in custody for more than 72 hours, the legal limit for children in these facilities.
In recent weeks, HHS and DHS have opened an emergency entrance site specifically for minors at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. The decision came just days after the agency opened a separate emergency site in Midland, Texas. HHS then revealed on Saturday that it will also open the Target Lodge Pecos North property in Texas as an “influx care facility” for children – it can accommodate about 500 children and can be expanded to accommodate 2,000.
Earlier this week, officials also said they would soon open convention centers in San Diego and San Antonio, in addition to using Department of Defense bases in Texas.
President Joe Biden said at his news conference on Thursday that efforts should get children out of the border patrol’s facilities more quickly.