Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children
Senator Elizabeth Warren had demanded that the detention facility be "closed down", and calls for investigation and oversight grew stronger when it was revealed that the federal government had paid $33 million in just 46 days for 1,200 of the empty beds.
[3] As of September 2019, Caliburn International, a security consulting firm, of which CHS is a subsidiary, faced criticism from south Florida media for its role,[2][4] particularly because President Donald Trump's former Secretary of Homeland Security and Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, sat on the board of and worked as a lobbyist for D.C. Capital Partners (DCCP), before joining the administration in November 2017.
Other members of the military–industrial complex on the board include scientist and bureaucrat Donald Kerr and Ambassadors Michael Corbin and decorated U.S. Navy Vietnam veteran and Reagan administration Assistant Secretary of Defense, Richard Armitage.
[18] It was believed that the contract had been crafted in an effort to circumvent the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) which had been arrived at in 1997 after over 11 years of litigation regarding the care of minor immigrants in detention.
[18] The detention facility is surrounded by tall fencing with security checkpoints in a former Job Corps building on the Homestead Air Reserve Base.
The late Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings, who chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said, "The Trump Administration's actions at the southern border are grotesque and dehumanizing," "There seems to be open contempt for the rule of law and for basic human decency.
[21] On July 15, 2019, the center was visited by a congressional delegation which found the government had just rapidly reduced the number of teenagers detained there, a 42% drop in 12 days.
The chairwoman of the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Connecticut's Rosa DeLauro, wanted to know if those who had so quickly left had been paired with family members or sponsors, or just transferred to alternate shelters.
Caliburn International did not inform them regarding possible closure but did tell them that on July 3, the shelter went on “admittance stop, so no new children have come in since then," and that DHHS began, "...releasing kids as quickly as possible."
Miami Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who had inquired about hurricane planning, said that the lack of such an emergency policy was an "extremely dangerous form of neglect."
[23] The previous day, Democratic politicians including, state Representative Kionne McGhee, then-Senator Bill Nelson and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were denied entry to the shelter.
"[12] In February 2019, reporters on a tour of the facility were informed that older children preferred the huge dormitory holding hundreds of beds, a program manager telling them, "They say it's like a slumber party.
"[8] In Topeka, Kansas, Washburn University law professor David Rubenstein, whose research is focused on privatized immigrant detention said, "The profiteering incentive comes at the cost of cutting programs or rights or treatment or conditions.
[33] At a September 18, 2019 hearing of the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, et al., in response to a question posed by Representative Mark Pocan, Jonathan Hayes, the acting director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement said the Department of Health and Human Services had spent more than $33 million in 46 days to keep the vacant Homestead center in operation although no children were currently housed there.
[34][2] Pocan later told Newsweek that he felt the explanation Hayes provided was insufficient, and the price being paid would be more than the cost of a "night in the Four Seasons or a Trump hotel."
[36] A Stanford University expert in child trauma, Ryan Matlow, expressed concerns that size of the Homestead facility was inappropriate, that it was much too large to address the individual needs of children and that the depersonalization of detainees could produce long term physical and emotional effects, including heart problems and depression.
It is surrounded by soil and groundwater contaminated with dangerous metal and chemicals which include arsenic and lead, and adjacent land was utilized for hazardous waste, munitions, and pesticide storage.
[37] There was an additional problem regarding exposure to high levels of noise at the center as it is proximate to operations of the Homestead Air Reserve Base's F-16C fighter jets.
The center was found to be in a noise zone that according to the United States Air Force (USAF), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is "normally unacceptable" for any human residence.
[37] A government watchdog agency, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the DHHS, looked into allegations of sex abuse and extortion in the Homestead shelter.
Senator Rick Scott negotiated that tax break, Comprehensive Health concluded a deal to pay a $3.8 million settlement to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle a medical-fraud claim.
[38] Despite an absence of competitive bidding, in late April 2019, CHSi was granted a new contract worth at least $341 million, but which could increase substantially if the population of children continued to rise.
[12] There had been concerted initiatives on the part of the Trump administration to shift detained children from non-profit, often religious denomination-operated shelters, to Caliburn and other for-profit prison operators, such as the GEO Group.
Six other Comprehensive Health Services programs in Texas that were holding migrant children were booming, including those in San Benito, Brownsville, and Los Fresnos.
