AP Investigation: Migrant kids held in mass shelters
Decades after the U.S. stopped institutionalizing kids because large and crowded orphanages were causing lasting trauma, it is happening again. The federal government has placed most of the 14,300 migrant children in its care in detention centers and residential facilities packed with hundreds, or thousands, of kids.
As the year draws to a close, some 5,400 detained migrant children in the U.S. are sleeping in shelters with more than 1,000 other children. Some 9,800 are in facilities with 100-plus total kids, according to confidential government data obtained and cross-checked by The Associated Press. Three months after President Donald Trump took office, the same federal program had 2,720 migrant youth in its care — most in shelters with a few dozen kids or in foster programs.
Until now, public information has been limited about the number of youths held at each facility overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The AP obtained data showing the number of children in individual detention centers, shelters and foster care programs for nearly every week over the past 20 months, revealing in detail the expanse of a program at the center of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.