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The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Wednesday, November 28, 2018 3A
TEXAS
Detention camp for teen
migrants keeps growing
Temporary, emergency facility in desert shows no signs of closing
Photos by IVAN PIERRE AGUIRRE I Associated Press
Migrant teens inside the Tornillo detention camp sit inside the facility Nov. 25 in Tornillo, Texas.
Dalila Reynoso-Gonzalez, center left, a program director for
the Methodist immigration advocacy group Justice for our
Neighbors of East Texas, and another protestor talk with a
Department of Homeland Security official Nov. 15 outside
the Tornillo detention camp.
Manafort allegations
throw uncertainty
into Russia probe
Associated Press
BY GARANCE BURKE
AND MARTHA MENDOZA
Associated Press
TORNILLO - The
Trump administration
announced in June it would
open a temporary shelter
for up to 360 migrant chil
dren in this isolated corner
of the Texas desert. Less
than six months later, the
facility has expanded into
a detention camp holding
thousands of teenagers —
and it shows every sign of
becoming more permanent.
By Tuesday, 2,324 largely
Central American boys and
girls between the ages of 13
and 17 were sleeping inside
the highly guarded facil
ity in rows of bunk beds in
canvas tents, some of which
once housed first respond
ers to Hurricane Harvey.
More than 1,300 teens have
arrived since the end of
October.
Rising from the cotton
fields and dusty roads not far
from the fence marking the
border between the U.S. and
Mexico, the camp has rows
of beige tents and golf carts
that ferry staffers carrying
walkie-talkies. Teens with
identical haircuts and gov
ernment-issued shirts and
pants can be seen walking
single file from tent to tent,
flanked by staff at the front
and back.
More people are detained
in Tornillo’s tent city than
in all but one of the nation’s
204 federal prisons, and con
struction continues.
None of the 2,100 staff
are going through rigorous
FBI fingerprint background
checks, according to a gov
ernment watchdog memo
published Tuesday. “Instead,
Tornillo is using checks con
ducted by a private con
tractor that has access to
less comprehensive data,
thereby heightening the risk
that an individual with a
criminal history could have
direct access to children,”
the memo says.
Federal plans to close
Tornillo by Dec. 31 may be
impossible to meet. There
aren’t 2,300 extra beds in
other facilities, and a con
tract obtained by the AP
shows the project could
continue into 2020. Planned
closures have already been
extended three times since
this summer.
The teens at Tornillo
were not separated from
their families at the border.
Almost all came on their own
hoping to join family mem
bers in the United States.
The camp’s population
may grow even more if
migrants in the caravans cas
tigated by President Donald
Trump enter the U.S. Fed
eral officials have said they
may fly caravan teens who
arrive in San Diego directly
to El Paso, then bus them to
Tornillo, according to a non
profit social service provider
who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because he
was not allowed to publicly
discuss the matter.
As the population inside
the camp swells, young
detainees’ anguish has
deepened.
“The few times they let
me call my mom I would tell
her that one day I would be
free, but really I felt like I
would be there for the rest of
my life,” a 17-year-old from
Honduras who was held at
Tornillo earlier this year
told AP. “I feel so bad for the
kids who are still there. What
if they have to spend Christ
mas there? They need a hug,
and nobody is allowed to hug
there.”
He spoke on condition
of anonymity for fear of
reprisal from immigration
authorities.
The nonprofit agency con
tracted to run Tornillo says it
is proud of its work. It says it
is operating the facility with
the same precision and care
used for shelters put up after
natural disasters.
“We don’t have anything
to hide. This is an excep
tionally run operation,” said
Krista Piferrer, a spokes
woman for BCFS Health
and Human Services, a faith-
based organization.
A spokesman for the U.S.
Department of Health and
Human Services, Mark
Weber, said no decisions
have been made about
whether Tornillo will close
by year’s end as scheduled.
“Whatever it is we decide
to do, in the very near future,
we’ll do a public notice about
that,” he said.
In June, as detention cen
ters for migrant children
overflowed, Scott Lloyd,
director of HHS’s Office
of Refugee Resettlement,
signed a memo granting a
waiver to staff up Tornillo
without the required child
abuse and neglect checks,
which flag any potential
employee who has a record
of hurting a child. There
were two reasons, according
to a memo by HHS’s inspec
tor general’s office: first,
there was pressure to move
quickly to open the detention
camp, and second, Lloyd’s
agency assumed Tornillo
staff had already undergone
FBI fingerprint checks. They
had not.
WASHINGTON - The
breakdown of a plea deal
with former Trump cam
paign chairman Paul
Manafort and an explosive
British news report about
alleged contacts he may
have had with WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange
threw a new element of
uncertainty into the Trump-
Russia probe Tuesday.
A day after prosecu
tors accused Manafort of
repeatedly lying to them,
trashing his deal to tell all
in return for a lighter sen
tence, he denied a report he
secretly met with Assange
in March 2016. That’s the
same month he joined the
Trump campaign and that
Russian hackers began
an effort to penetrate the
emails of Hillary Clinton’s
presidential campaign.
The developments thrust
Manafort back into the
spotlight, raising new ques
tions about what he knows
and what prosecutors say
he might be attempting to
conceal as they probe Rus
sian election interference
and any possible coordina
tion with Trump associates
in the campaign that sent
the celebrity businessman
to the White House.
At the same time, other
figures entangled in the
investigation, including
Trump himself, have been
scrambling to escalate
attacks and allegations
against prosecutors who
have spent weeks working
quietly behind the scenes.
Besides denying
he’d ever met Assange,
Manafort said he’d told
Robert Mueller’s prosecu
tors the truth during ques
tioning. And WikiLeaks
said Manafort never met
with Assange, offering to
bet London’s Guardian
newspaper “a million dol
lars and its editor’s head.”
Assange, whose orga
nization published thou
sands of emails stolen
from Clinton’s campaign in
2016, is in the Ecuadorean
Embassy in London under
a claim of asylum.
It is unclear what pros
ecutors contend Manafort
lied about, though they’re
expected to make a public
filing ahead of sentencing
that could offer answers.
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