Feds Say No More Migrants Coming To Midland

Sunday morning news broke that the federal government had taken over a local man camp and would soon be house migrant juveniles here in Midland. Though many questions have been ask, local, state, and federal officials still don't have many answers, except one. The Associated Press reported yesterday that shipping these migrants to Midland could stop. Apparently the facility wasn't ready and has been deemed unsage to handle this kind of situation with staff and other needs of these migrants.

Associated Press: 

The U.S. government has stopped taking immigrant teenagers to a converted camp for oil field workers in West Texas as it faces questions about the safety of emergency sites it is quickly setting up to hold children crossing the southern border.

The Associated Press has learned that the converted camp has faced multiple issues in the four days since the Biden administration opened it amid a scramble to find space for immigrant children. More than 10% of the camp’s population has tested positive for COVID-19 and at least one child had to be hospitalized.

An official working at the Midland, Texas, facility said most of the Red Cross volunteers staffing the site don’t speak Spanish, even though the teenagers they care for are overwhelmingly from Central America. When the facility opened, there weren’t enough new clothes to give to teenagers who had been wearing the same shirts and pants for several days, the official said. And no case managers were on site to begin processing the minors’ release to family elsewhere in the U.S.

Bringing in teenagers while still setting up basic services “was kind of like building a plane as it’s taking off,” said the official, who declined to be named due to government restrictions.

U.S. Health and Human Services notified local officials in Midland on Wednesday that it had no plans to bring more teenagers to the site, according to an email seen by the AP. HHS spokesman Mark Weber said taking more teenagers to Midland was on “pause for now.” There were still 485 youths there as of Wednesday, 53 of whom had tested positive for COVID-19.