Trump Administration Plans New Facility To House 3,000 Migrant Kids. Many of Them Lack Legal Representation.

Over 6,200 children have been detained since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term. But despite ongoing legal challenges over the poor conditions in which detained undocumented children are held, the Trump administration is planning to build a new detention facility capable of holding 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

The purpose of the proposed “Emergency Intake Facility,” discussed during a virtual roundtable on Tuesday, is to respond to “surges” of unaccompanied children at the southern border, reports The Independent. Surrounded by an 8-foot fence and staffed by “physicians, teachers and other ‘humanitarian care’ providers,” the facility would hold up to eight children in a room, sharing one toilet, shower, and sink, according to The Independent. 

Although a location hasn’t been selected for the detention center, “officials…appear ready to move quickly once contracts are awarded by the end of this year,” according to The Independent.  

But when asked, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson told The Independent that “there are currently no immediate plans to establish such a facility,” calling the virtual roundtable a “standard procedure” for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). “ORR will not wait for an influx to occur before seeking out a contractor who can meet the statutory requirements of an ORR facility,” the spokesperson continued, stressing the agency must be “prepared for any possible scenario at all times.” 

However, the Emergency Intake Facility isn’t the only reason immigration advocates believe the Trump administration is now targeting unaccompanied minor children.  

As of July 31, a long-standing federal contract expired, “effectively dismantling the nationwide network of nearly 100 legal service providers that have provided counsel to more than 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children,” according to the Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit immigration defense firm and the primary contract holder. Although a bridge contract was offered, Acacia Center for Justice stated that it declined the contract because it would have “required legal service providers to turn over confidential client information that could be used to deport the very children [the organization is] committed to protecting as a condition of payment.” 

Such a massive loss of legal representation is significant since the federal government is required by law to “ensure, to the greatest extent practicable…that all unaccompanied alien children…have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings…and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.” But just weeks after the contract’s expiration, immigration judges are reportedly speeding through thousands of children’s removal cases and giving children only three weeks or less to find attorneys, reports Bloomberg Law. 

Other protections for immigrant minors have also been significantly rolled back, contributing to a deportation rate of unaccompanied migrant children three times higher than that of Trump’s first term, and “more than 10,000 removal and voluntary departure orders [issued] each month for immigration minors,” according to an analysis by ProPublica. 

Building mass detention centers for unaccompanied and largely unrepresented minors will surely lead to even more deportations and removals. And while that is good news for proponents of Trump’s mass deportation agenda, it’s a plan that leaves thousands of children vulnerable to lifelong trauma associated with detention, and alone to navigate a complicated immigration system that was once meant to protect them.