Washington, D.C. has introduced emergency regulations in order to make it impossible to implement the federal government’s plan of a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children run by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) in the city.
According to a report by the Washington Post, the emergency regulations enacted on Friday by the administration of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser are aiming to bar the District’s child welfare agency from giving license to entities that keep over 15 residents. DHHS was going to house 200 unaccompanied minors at the planned facility.
JUST IN: Mayor Bowser takes emergency action to block planned DHHS (Health & Human Svcs) shelter for unaccompanied migrant children in DC. The legislation, which is in effect now, limits shelters to no bigger than 15 beds. DHHS wanted to house 200 unaccompanied minors. @fox5dc pic.twitter.com/xhcuU81ECt
— Evan Lambert (@EvanLambertTV) August 20, 2019
Dynamic Service Solutions, a Maryland-based company, applied recently to open a temporary shelter for children in the District. It subsequently published advertisements seeking to hire employees that will work with “unaccompanied alien” children in D.C.
DHHS reportedly granted a $20.5 million contract to the company for the planned shelter for migrant children aged between 12 and 17.
Bowser announced on August 13 that the District would not accept housing a facility for unaccompanied migrant children. In her statement, she said the city would not be “complicit in the inhumane practice of detaining migrant children in warehouses.”
Bowser and other politicians who oppose the idea of such a center in D.C. say that they are not against having immigrant children in the city, but they are rejecting the system offered by the federal government.