As much as 2,500 migrant youngsters can be despatched from detention services alongside the U.S.-Mexican border to the Fairplex in Pomona, the place they are going to be offered momentary shelter, Los Angeles County officers introduced Friday, April 9.
The unaccompanied minors will start arriving within the subsequent few days and detainees are anticipated to remain a couple of month, in line with county and federal officers.
Fairplex will turn into the second website in Los Angeles County to quickly home youngsters principally from Central America who’re attempting to achieve asylum within the U.S., joining the Long Beach Convention Center underneath a proposal unanimously accredited by the Lengthy Seashore Metropolis Council on Tuesday.
“They’re youngsters. They’re our youngsters. We have to do all the pieces we are able to to get them reunited with their households,” Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval mentioned in a information convention Friday held in an empty corridor on the 487-acre Fairplex campus. The positioning of the Los Angeles County Truthful has been repurposed for a lot of the previous 12 months to reply to the coronavirus pandemic, offering housing for these needing quarantine and house for COVID-19 vaccination clinics, neighborhood meals giveaways and extra.
In accordance with interim Fairplex CEO Walter Marquez, solely a portion of the location, principally the southern exhibition halls, can be used as an emergency consumption heart for migrant youngsters.
Though a contract has not but been signed, Fairplex and L.A. County will work with the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers and the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement in an effort to ease the rising border disaster. Final month, border authorities encountered practically 19,000 youngsters with out a guardian, an all-time month-to-month excessive, in line with Reginald Harrison, Lengthy Seashore’s director of catastrophe preparedness.
As soon as the minors cross the border they flip themselves in to the U.S. Border Patrol and are taken into custody. A majority coming to Pomona can be youngsters ages 12 to 17, mentioned Bonnie Preston, appearing regional director for county Well being and Human Providers. Most come from Central America, usually fleeing gangs, violence or discrimination, carrying a reputation and cellphone variety of a possible sponsor dwelling in the USA, mentioned county and federal officers. The objective is to contact potential sponsors and place the kids in everlasting houses.
“These individuals should be vetted and it takes time,” Preston mentioned. If the sponsor doesn’t take a look at, HHS will work with the county Division of Kids and Household Providers and native nonprofits to discover a foster household or perhaps a particular person prepared to undertake a migrant little one.
Hilda Solis, chair of the county Board of Supervisors and the previous labor secretary underneath President Barack Obama, mentioned she acquired a name from the White Home in regards to the disaster on the border and “I knew with out query that it was our time to step up, as Los Angeles County at all times does.”
In accordance with Solis, the county will present psychological well being, instructional and leisure companies.
“It’s not a detention facility. There won’t be cages and it’s not a jail. It’s a campus,” she mentioned.
“These youngsters are taking a harmful and traumatic journey all to get an opportunity at a brand new life,” she added. “That new life will begin at Pomona Fairplex the place they are going to be welcome.”
Robin Hvidston, government director of We The Folks Rising, based mostly in Claremont, was against the county taking in migrant youngsters.
“Our tax {dollars} ought to go for our individuals, not for individuals illegally in our nation,” she mentioned throughout an interview Friday. She’s involved that foster households will soak up migrant youngsters and go away many American youngsters in want of a house out within the chilly.
“The federal {dollars} are flowing for individuals crossing our borders however our personal residents are being pushed apart,” she mentioned. A lot of these applications will encourage extra individuals to cross the border illegally, she mentioned.
Federal officers need to transfer migrant youngsters from crowded detention facilities on the border for humanitarian causes, but additionally to advertise higher well being, together with protections from publicity to the coronavirus.
Protocols are in place to forestall the unfold of the coronavirus, Preston defined. When with the Border Patrol, the kids are examined instantly and optimistic instances are transported individually. At an consumption heart, they’re examined once more, and those that check optimistic for COVID-19 and people uncovered to somebody who’s optimistic are positioned in separate quarters with totally different air-filtration techniques.
“All these particulars should be labored out with Fairplex,” Preston mentioned.
Fairplex, an leisure venue which hosts the county honest and concert events, has been used for emergency services during the past year. The Sheraton Fairplex Lodge was used to quarantine coronavirus sufferers from March 2020 till just a few weeks in the past. It additionally served as each a COVID-19 testing and vaccination website.
“The grounds will proceed to function with different actions we have now now,” mentioned Marquez. “Vaccinations and COVID-19 testing will proceed.”
Solis mentioned she believes the kids can be examined and people eligible will obtain the COVID-19 vaccine. She believes the perilous journey for 1000’s of migrant youngsters will get higher.
“In the present day there’s a beacon of hope. That hope begins right here in Los Angeles County,” she mentioned.
Metropolis Information Service contributed to this report.
