Federal officials announced it is no longer moving unaccompanied migrant children to the oilfield mancamp in Midland, Texas, after nearly 11 percent tested positive for COVID-19. The statewide average in Texas is less than 6.5 percent.
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesman Mark Weber told the Associated Press they put their plans to move more unaccompanied migrant teenagers to the Midland facility on pause. The pause followed the finding that 53 of the 485 migrant teens tested positive for COVID-19 after being secretly moved by buses to Midland under the cover of darkness.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed a COVID outbreak in one of the HHS facilities in Texas.
“The conditions unaccompanied minors face in these federally run facilities is unacceptable and inhumane. From a lack of safe drinking water in one location to a COVID-19 outbreak in another, the Biden Administration has no excuse for subjecting these children to these kinds of conditions,” Governor Abbott said in a statement provided to Breitbart Texas. “President Biden’s refusal to address the border crisis is not only enabling criminal actors like human traffickers and smugglers, but it is exposing innocent unaccompanied children to illness and potentially unsafe living conditions. The administration must act now to keep these children safe, secure our border, and end this humanitarian crisis.”
Abbott also tweeted that the Lone Star State has experienced a lower-than 6.5 percent infection rate during the past week.
Former HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison told Breitbart Texas that the humanitarian crisis on the southern border is completely of President Joe Biden’s making during an interview on Friday. Harrison served HHS during the Trump administration and is currently a candidate for the Texas 6th Congressional District.
“We actually had COVID protocols in place, you know, in these UAC shelters, they have undone the COVID protocols,” Harrison told Breitbart. “You know, the same people who say schools can’t be open, the economy can’t be open lockdowns forever, are undoing the COVID protocols in the shelters for the illegal alien children.”
In February, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced the administration ended the COVID capacity restrictions in facilities housing migrant unaccompanied minors to ease overcrowding.
“We had to expand and open additional facilities because there was not enough space in the existing facilities if we were to abide by COVID protocols,” Psaki said during a late February press briefing.
Harrison says the capacity issue came about as a direct result of Biden eliminating successful programs put in place during the Trump administration.
“We didn’t have a capacity problem. When Joe Biden took office, we had a lot of excess capacity,” Harrison explained. “The reason there’s a capacity problem doesn’t have anything to do with shelters, or the number of buildings. The reason there’s a capacity problem is because Joe Biden has supercharged the magnet incentivizing record numbers of illegal immigrants across our borders illegally. That’s why there’s a capacity problem.”
After sneaking the migrant teens into the Midland mancamp facility, HHS officials working with FEMA opened an additional shelter at the Dallas Convention Center, Breitbart Texas reported. That facility is designed to hold up to 3,000 teens in what the agency is calling a “decompression shelter.”
Breitbart asked Harrison what a “decompression shelter” was.
“Who knows? Never heard that,” Harrison responded. “I was the chief of staff of the agency that oversaw these things. I’ve never heard that term in my life. I have no idea.”
“I think it’s just, I think it’s just the, you know, the democrats in the media colluding to change the name.” he explained. “So the American people won’t know the full extent of the devastation and the crisis that they’re creating on the border.”
U.S. Border Patrol continues to hold massive numbers of unaccompanied minors in facilities designed to hold adults who illegally cross the border — many for up to five days in violation of the 72-hour legal requirement.
“As roughly 4,500 children wait in Border Patrol facilities unequipped for long-term detention, with some sleeping on floors, HHS has rushed to open holding sites across the country and tried to expedite its processes for releasing children in custody,” the AP reported. “About 9,500 minors are in HHS custody.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
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