Casa Padre

Casa Padre is a shelter for unaccompanied or separated immigrant minors in custody of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of Health & Human Services, located in Brownsville, Texas.[2][3] The building was formerly a Walmart store. The center is run by the nonprofit group Southwest Key Programs under contract from the federal government. Casa Padre is the largest licensed childcare facility in the United States, housing approximately 1,500 youths.[4][5] According to the Internal Revenue Service, the group houses approximately 5,129 immigrant children in the United States.[6][7]

Casa Padre
Location3449,7480 Padre Island Hwy, Brownsville, Texas, U.S.
Coordinates25°56′33.6″N 97°25′26.2″W
StatusOpen
OpenedMarch 2017[1]

Reaction

On June 3, 2018, Oregon US Senator Jeff Merkley attempted to gain entrance to the shelter to which the site manager refused and called the police. The six-minute video recording of the event was shared over a million times. On June 3, 2018, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley was denied entrance to the Casa Padre facility as part of his investigation into the living conditions of the children. The recorded exchange between Merkley and the employees of the facility was uploaded to YouTube and was shared 1.1 million times.[8]

Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi condemned both the detention facility and the Trump Administration's controversial immigration policies, stating, "This is barbaric. This is not what America is. But this is the policy of the Trump administration." Then- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan stated his disapproval of the Trump Administration's policy towards separating children from their parents. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma tweeted, "I am asking the White House to keep families together as much as we can."[9]

See also

References
  1. "Closed Wal-Mart in Brownsville to Reopen as Shelter for Unaccompanied Minors". KRGV.com. ABC News. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  2. Tribune, The Texas; Walters, Edgar (12 July 2018). "Can separated immigrant children just walk out of shelters? Technically, yes". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  3. Zaveri, Mihir; Fernandez, Manny (24 June 2018). "Teenager Is Missing After Walking Away From Migrant Children's Center in Texas". Retrieved 9 April 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  4. "Surge in children separated at border floods facility for undocumented immigrants. The nearly 1,500 boys living in the shelter sleep five in rooms built for four". NBC News Digital. Boys in line at Casa Padre in Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday. It is the largest licensed child care facility in the nation for children brought to the U.S. illegally.
  5. Gonzales, Richard; Burnett, John. "'These Are Not Kids Kept In Cages': Inside A Texas Shelter For Immigrant Youth". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  6. Miller, Michael E.; Brown, Emma; Davis, Aaron C. (June 14, 2018). "Inside Casa Padre, the converted Walmart where the U.S. is holding nearly 1,500 immigrant children". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  7. "Inside the former Walmart holding 1,500 immigrant children in Texas". CBS News. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  8. Quito, Anne. "A prison or a summer camp? Wildly different spins on the Casa Padre child immigrant center". Quartz. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  9. Burnett, John; Gonzales, Richard. "'These Are Not Kids Kept In Cages': Inside A Texas Shelter For Immigrant Youth". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.