HHS to reopen barely used $300 million adolescent migrant 'overflow facility'
The facility was used for just one month in the summer of 2019.
By Sophie Mann
Updated: February 13, 2021 - 10:28pm
The Golden Horseshoe is a weekly designation from Just the News intended to highlight egregious examples of wasteful taxpayer spending by the government. The ward is named for the horseshoe-shaped toilet seats for military airplanes that cost the Pentagon a whopping $640 each back in the 1980s.
This week, our award is going to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for reopening a previously underutilized $300 million residential shelter for adolescent illegal immigrants.
This month, HHS confirmed that it will reopen a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas that can accommodate as many as 1,300 illegal immigrant minors who crossed the southern border. The center, located just 45 miles from the Mexican border — once a detention camp, now rebranded an "overflow facility" by various mainstream outlets — was originally opened during the summer of 2019 to the tune of $300 million in taxpayer funds.
HHS currently funds about 170 state-licensed care facilities around the country to accommodate the influx of illegal immigrants across the various points of the U.S. border. Services offered at the sites include education for children and adolescents, mental and physical healthcare, legal counsel, and a select number of recreational activities.
The center, which was funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — an arm of HHS that is meant to logistically accommodate illegal immigrants under the age of 18 — operated for just one month during the summer of 2019. During its single month of use, the center housed just 200 illegal immigrants at its peak, a figure that decreased to 100 before the Trump administration shut it down altogether — but not before spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build classrooms, sports facilities, and a gazebo at the facility.
more
https://justthenews.com/accountability/waste-fraud-and-abuse/hold-hhs-reopen-barely-used-300-million-adolescent-migrant
