The federal government is moving 1000 undocumented and unaccompanied children to a holding facility in Nogales, AZ that has no indoor plumbing. You may have read in the NYTimes about all the unaccompanied children entering the U.S.
Since Oct. 1, a record 47,017 unaccompanied children have been apprehended at the southwest United States border, most traveling from Central America, part of a larger wave that includes some youngsters accompanied by their parents and some traveling alone.
The children have been detained and are now being moved about the country.
The federal government plans to use the facility in Nogales as a way station, where the children will be vaccinated and checked medically. They will then be flown to facilities being set up in Ventura, Calif., San Antonio and Fort Sill, Okla., the AP said.
[Gov. Jan] Brewer's spokesman, Andrew Wilder, told the Associated Press that conditions at the holding facility in Nogales are so dire that the state is releasing federal medical and other supplies to the facility. A regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was also being sent to Arizona to help manage the crisis, Wilder told the AP.
Laura Oxley, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services, said federal officials have also asked Arizona to have vaccines, paid for by the federal government, shipped to Nogales. Oxley said these are for the normal childhood diseases like measles and mumps, with the plan being to vaccinate the children before they are moved elsewhere.
Wilder said this appears to be more than a temporary situation. He said as children leave the Nogales facility they are expected to be replaced by new arrivals, with capacity there at 1,500 at any one time.
Last week Ice dropped off hundreds of women and children at Tucson and Phoenix greyhound Stations.
Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson,....said the migrants were flown to Arizona because the Border Patrol does not have enough manpower to handle a surge in illegal immigrants in south Texas.
The release has drawn criticism from those on both sides of the immigration issue.
The AZ Republic and the AZ Daily Star are following and updating the story.
This is a terrible situation, and I don't have any answers, but I know that sending 1000 kids to a facility with no plumbing will not go well. Those poor kids.