HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Immigration activists held a car rally Thursday around the facility in Homestead that was used for child migrants “to oppose its reopening by the Biden administration.”
Children of migrants detained at the border have not been sent to the facility in more than a year and a half, but the Biden administration is finalizing plans to have it reopened.
Advocates don’t believe the conditions in the facility are safe for children and are also concerned about long-term mental effects.
“We’ve said it before and we will say it again: There is absolutely no need to open an influx facility, especially as we continue to deal with the global pandemic,” said Romina Montenegro of United We Dream
Organizers of the protest included United We Dream, AFSC Florida, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Immigrant Action Alliance, Florida Immigrant Youth Network, WeCount! and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
WATCH A REPLAY OF THURSDAY’S NEWS CONFERENCE AHEAD OF THE RALLY:
Immigration activists are holding a car rally Thursday around the facility in Homestead that was used for child migrants “to oppose its reopening by the Biden administration.”
Posted by WPLG Local 10 on Thursday, March 4, 2021
“The opposition to the reopening of the center keeps growing and, in less than a week, over 6,000 people nationwide have signed a petition sending messages directly to President Biden,” organizers said in a news release. “However, local immigrant youth and community members keep hearing about local hiring calls in Homestead and are concerned that the Biden administration is moving forward quietly with a complete lack of transparency and hiring yet another private contractor that will keep profiting from the pain of immigrant children.”
Protesters say local Democrats largely agree with them about keeping the facility closed but that they are not getting the same support from statewide members of the party.
The Homestead center — which mostly housed teenage detainees — was emptied in August 2019 and the Trump administration announced it was shutting it down in October 2019. That came after heavy criticism and political pressure amid claims of abuse and perceptions that children were being kept in cages.
Today, the federal facility may be empty but it is still heavily guarded by security.
The Biden administration has said the facility could be used as a shelter, rather than it being framed as a detention center.
“I would describe it as a place where we keep kids — who are under the age of 18 and taking a treacherous journey into this country — safe,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week.
Psaki said President Joe Biden’s administration is working as quickly as possible to process the children out of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities and into shelters managed by The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Critics have condemned Homestead and other emergency influx facilities where children age 17 and under are sent after they enter the United State and are detained by Border Patrol agents.
“Want to remind people that this land is toxic and detention for children is bad, and dangerous, and hazardous, and causes only trauma,” said Guadalupe De La Cruz of AFSC Florida. “No one should be housed here, no child should be detained here, no person should be working here.”