Unaccompanied Minors Sent to Contaminated Military Bases
April 5, 2021
An environmental group blasts Biden's plan to use toxic military sites as
detention centers for migrant children in U.S. custody.
Child at the Paso del Norte Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas, Feb. 26. (U.S.
Customs and Border Control, Flickr, Glenn Fawcett)
By Kenny Stancil
Common Dreams
In a move that was condemned by environmental justice advocates on Friday,
President Joe Biden's administration sent 500 unaccompanied asylum-seeking
minors to Fort Bliss - a highly contaminated and potentially hazardous
military base in El Paso, Texas - and is reportedly considering using
additional toxic military sites as detention centers for migrant children in
U.S. custody.
"We are extremely concerned to hear of plans to detain immigrant children in
Fort Bliss. Military bases filled with contaminated sites are no place for
the healthy development of any child," Melissa Legge, an attorney at
Earthjustice, said in a statement.
"We recognize that the humanitarian situation at the border needs to be
addressed in humanity, compassion, and expediency," Legge continued. "Part
of that requires keeping children away from toxic military sites."
"While we are hopeful that the Biden administration will keep children safe,
we remain vigilant and ready to continue protecting detained minors in toxic
facilities," she added. "Immigrant children under the care of the federal
government should not be in cages, let alone toxic sites in military bases."
The Biden administration announced last week that facilities at Fort Bliss
"would serve as temporary housing for up to 5,000 unaccompanied minors," the
El Paso Times reported Tuesday. The Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) said "it will reserve the Fort Bliss accommodations for boys ages 13
to 17. Military personnel won't staff the site or provide care for the
children, who are in the custody and care of HHS."
Temporary processing facilitiy in Donna, Texas, March 17. (U.S. Customs and
Border Control, Flickr, Jaime Rodriguez Sr.)
There are 17,641 unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in U.S. custody as of
Tuesday, according to ABC News. Over 5,600 children are being held in
overcrowded facilities run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which
falls under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while more than
12,000 are under the supervision of HHS.
Although DHS is supposed to transfer minors to the HHS's Office of Refugee
Resettlement within 72 hours - after which children are housed in one of
more than 200 HHS-approved shelters in 22 states until they can be placed
with a family member or another suitable sponsor - thousands have been stuck
for far longer than legally allowed in squalid conditions.
Restricting Media Access
Last month, the White House came under fire for restricting media access to
CBP's detention facilities, which some journalists have described as "border
jails."
As the El Paso Times noted, HHS described Fort Bliss as "an 'emergency
intake site' and a temporary measure to quickly remove the children from the
custody of the Border Patrol."
Earthjustice argues that the Biden administration's plan to use military
bases -many of which the group says "are known to be riddled with toxic
hazards from past military operations, spills, storage of toxic chemicals,
unexploded ordnances, and firing ranges" - to expand its capacity to
temporarily detain unaccompanied children is no solution.
According to Earthjustice: "130 military bases and installations are
considered priority Superfund sites by the Environmental Protection Agency.
There are currently 651 Department of Defense and National Guard sites
potentially contaminated by toxic chemicals known as PFAS, short for per-
and polyfluoroalkyl substances. PFAS don't easily break down, and they can
persist in your body and in the environment for decades."
Temporary processing facilitiy in Donna, Texas, for families and
unaccompanied children, March 17. (U.S. Customs and Border Control, Flickr,
Jaime Rodriguez Sr.)
Several of the military sites being considered by the Biden administration
"are contaminated with potentially hazardous pollutants and some are even
located on or near Superfund sites," Earthjustice said.
The organization continued:
"Superfund sites under consideration for housing children in immigration
custody include the Homestead Detention Facility in Homestead, Florida,
Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, and Joint Base San Antonio in
Texas. Many of the sites remain inadequately remediated and still
contaminated. Without proper environmental reviews, there is no way to
guarantee these sites are safe for children, potentially exposing them to
toxic chemicals that could have lifelong health impacts.
Fort Bliss is no exception. Earthjustice, along with partners including
Alianza Nacional de Campesinas and the National Hispanic Medical
Association, released hundreds of documents of searchable documents and an
expert analysis of previous plans for construction of a temporary detention
center for children and families at Fort Bliss. These records document
several problems with the project, including that the Army did not
adequately investigate to determine what types of waste had been disposed of
at the site, that the methods used for testing the soil samples were
inadequate or never completed, and that samples taken after the supposed
clean-up still had concerning levels of pollution. Additionally, illegal
dumping on the site may continue to this day. As a result, there is now even
greater uncertainty about the environmental hazards at the site and a
greater need for thorough testing, analysis, and cleanup."
"We are deeply concerned about the decision to open temporary detention
facilities for minors at Fort Bliss and the potential health risks to the
minors detained in tents there," said Dr. Elena Rios, president of the
National Hispanic Medical Association, a client in Earthjustice's 2018 FOIA
lawsuit regarding the base.
"Based on what we found in our Fort Bliss investigation in 2018," she added,
"there are still present toxins from past landfills, which means children
could be forcibly exposed to toxicity linked to cancer and development
defects."
Despite the GOP's dehumanizing and misleading narrative that a "border
crisis" is afoot, there has not been an uncharacteristic "surge" in migrants
entering the U.S. at the southern border, but rather a predictable bump in
border crossings that typically happens at this time of year, augmented by
the arrival of people who would have come in 2020 but could not due to the
clampdown on immigration during the Covid-19 pandemic, as the Washington
Post reported last week.
An HHS statement on the transfer of migrant children to the military base in
El Paso said that "the use of the Fort Bliss facility will have no impact on
the Department of Defense's ability to conduct its primary mission or on
military readiness."
The deference to militarism is telling. According to Rep. Jamaal Bowman
(D-N.Y.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), it is impossible to
understand the arrival of asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border without
taking into account the role played by U.S. imperialism.
Earlier this week, as Common Dreams reported, the two progressive lawmakers
made the case that the root causes of migration from Central America and
Mexico to the U.S. can be found in decades of interventionist foreign
policy, profit-maximizing trade and carceral policies, and the climate
crisis -all driven by the pursuit of capitalist class interests.
Citing the U.S. government's "flagrant disregard for the health of those in
custody," Earthjustice called for "the immediate halt of any plans to place
children in such unsafe facilities, the securing of safe and suitable
housing for children while they are required to remain in the care of the
Department of Health and Human Services, and the development of solutions
that do not involve placing children on or near toxic sites, military sites,
or in detention-like settings."
This article is from Common Dreams.
