DALLAS, TX – Conditions for about 2,000 migrant teen boys at the temporary emergency shelter in downtown Dallas are worrying advocates and former contract employees.
The boys at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center suffer from a lack of fresh air and sunlight, depression and limited access to phones to call their families. Fights have broken out among the boys as tensions have risen.
Some of the dozen people familiar with the conditions who spoke to The Dallas Morning News about the center say the management of the boys’ asylum cases seems chaotic, with boys unclear about processes such as their pending family reunions, deportation cases, or why they are being held.
“This is a humanitarian crisis in the convention center,” said Josephine Lopez-Paul, Dallas Area Interfaith’s lead organizer, who did volunteer work at the convention center. Like others interviewed, Lopez-Paul was taken aback by the number of children, mostly from Guatemala and Honduras, kept in one massive gray hall of the convention center, their metal cots in neat rows.
The Dallas center was initially billed as a “decompression center” for children, and after it opened on March 17, it quickly filled to capacity, about 2,300 boys ages 13 to 17.
But many who have worked or volunteered there have described the pop-up detention center as inadequate and depressing for the children, though they acknowledge it’s better than conditions at the Border Patrol sites where they are initially processed after crossing the border seeking asylum in the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and FEMA have contracted with private companies and nonprofits to assist. Virginia-based Culmen International and Austin-based Southwest Key Programs Inc., which runs licensed shelters and came under intense scrutiny in 2018 and 2019 over financial compensation and the treatment of children, have contracts.
Health and Human Services officials didn’t respond to repeated attempts to have questions about the facility answered, and Southwest Key referred inquiries to HHS.
But in a statement releasing daily numbers of children in government custody, HHS said, “While increase in arrivals began in mid-2020, this administration’s goal is to move unaccompanied minors who arrive at our borders out of DHS [Department of Homeland Security] custody and into HHS facilities, and ultimately place them with vetted family members or sponsors as quickly and safely as possible.”
Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, is contracted to provide legal assistance for boys at the Dallas shelter and four other locations.
“Our new reality is that we are working within a system that was designed going back three decades … when there were only a few hundred kids a year, and now there a few hundred kids a day,” said Wendy Young, the lawyer who is president of the D.C.-based legal nonprofit. “The goal is to get those kids out of there as soon as possible” and to make sure the children have access to lawyers.
Child welfare experts and those who have been at the Dallas convention center say immediate improvements are needed.
“The Biden administration had a lot thrown at them” when it took over in January from an administration hostile to immigrants and the asylum process, said Irene Mugambi, a Dallas immigration lawyer who has also volunteered at the convention center. Many contract employees were rapidly hired. “Some of the contractors were saying crazy things to kids like ‘You are going to get deported,’” Mugambi said.
“You don’t know how fragile they are.”
One person who asked to not be named for fear of losing the ability to work at the center, said they had heard the deportation comment, too, adding that the paid contract employee “was calling them ladrones — thieves. ‘Son una bola de ladrones. Por eso los van a deportar a todos.’ “ (”You are a bunch of thieves, and because of that they are going to deport all of you.”)
The worker interviewed by The News also said the boys were dissuaded from a hunger strike they planned to protest conditions there by the argument that the strike would be bad for their health.
Another person who has worked in the facility and asked not to be named for fear of losing access said they witnessed a few cases of children who stopped eating because of depression and others who had severe anxiety issues.
It is unclear how many migrant teens have come through the Dallas convention center, but estimates are more than 3,000 from those that have worked there. Federal authorities are not saying how long children are staying at the convention center before they are united with a sponsor, though on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the overall reunification time is about 30 days.
Young said migrant minors in emergency shelters were being reunited with a parent or legal guardian in 21 to 22 days. But the goal is seven to 10 days. Children with a relative such as an aunt or grandmother take longer, Young said.
“We are also hearing stories of kids exhibiting serious mental health problems,” she said. “These are kids who have obviously been traumatized in their own country, traumatized on the journey here and traumatized when they are taken into custody.”
One child was at the Dallas convention center for five weeks before his reunion with a family member.
“I am not a savior,” said the worker who noted depression and anxiety in children. “I am just there to connect with another human being and tell them they are not alone.”
