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Migrant Children Are Spending Months ‘Crammed’ in a Temporary Florida Shelter

The detention center in Homestead, Fla., is intended to keep children for only a few days but has been holding them for much longer.Credit...Eve Edelheit for The New York Times

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — About half of the roughly 2,300 children confined in a privately run Florida facility intended as a temporary shelter for migrant teenagers have been there for more than 20 days and many of them for months, despite legal standards that require children who cross the border to be speedily released or sent to state-licensed shelters that are equipped to offer longer-term care.

The Homestead center near Miami, the only one in the government’s large network of shelters run by a private, for-profit corporation, is intended to keep children for only a few days, but has been holding them for much longer as a result of the unusually large number of unaccompanied children arriving in recent months along the southwest border.

A recent population census, from June 25, showed that 1,162 children at the shelter had been there longer than 20 days. The report, obtained by The New York Times from a Homestead employee, listed 840 children who had been there more than 30 days, and 224 for at least 60 days.

A Guatemalan boy had been there the longest, 122 days, according to the report. A 14-year-old Guatemalan girl had been there 119 days.

The Homestead shelter has been the subject of close scrutiny in recent days, as overcrowding at migrant facilities along the border has led to growing concerns about the handling of migrant children not just at the border, but across the country. For several days, the Trump administration has been under attack for filthy housing conditions observers saw at a border station near Clint, Tex.

On Wednesday, ahead of the opening presidential debate, a parade of Democratic presidential contenders streamed out to the Homestead facility to criticize the conditions under which migrant children are being held at facilities along the border.

“What is happening at Homestead to children — what is happening as the direct result of activities of the United States government — is wrong,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who led the pack. “It is a stain on our country, and we must speak out.” Following Ms. Warren later in the day were Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Jane Sanders, the wife of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Children living at Homestead have complained that it is extremely crowded and noisy, and that they enjoy no privacy, according to reports filed with a federal court. They report feeling increasingly despondent because they have no idea when they will be released, lawyers said. Rules prohibit them from listening to music or writing in a journal. Some reported having suicidal thoughts.

Amy Cohen, a psychiatrist who has visited the facility, said the noise level was extremely high, especially in a tent with no soundproofing where “children are crammed” and teachers must use microphones to be heard above the noise.

“One child told me that many of the girls used requests for a bathroom break as a means to just briefly escape the noise and insufferable crowding, but that teachers had caught onto this and were refusing the requests,” she said.

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“What is happening at Homestead to children — what is happening as the direct result of activities of the United States government — is wrong,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said during a visit to the facility.Credit...Eve Edelheit for The New York Times

In many shelters, children are occasionally taken on outings for a change of environment. At Homestead, Dr. Cohen said, “the children never get out of this place, unless they have a medical appointment.”

Immigrant advocates have gone to court to argue that Homestead should be required to meet the rigorous standards established for detaining migrant children — though government officials argue that the facility, operated as a temporary “influx” shelter, not a detention center, is not legally required to do so.

Under those standards, established under a 1997 consent decree, children must generally be released within about 20 days, or transferred to a licensed shelter that has comfortable living accommodations and a full education program.

Costing over $1 million a day to operate, Homestead opened in February after the Trump administration closed a teeming tent city for migrant children in the desert at Tornillo, on the Texas border, which critics had described as a juvenile prison.

Sandwiched between a former Job Corps campus and the Homestead Air Reserve Base, the Homestead facility houses adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18. The facility’s beige barrackslike dormitories and white tents feel a world apart from the upscale gated communities nearby with names like Waterstone and Malibu Bay.

Evelyn Stauffer, a spokeswoman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees government shelters, said the agency was struggling to accommodate a surge in arrivals of migrant minors, who are mainly from Central America. Shelters across the country are currently holding more than 13,000 children and are at 90 percent capacity, with new referrals totaling more than 52,000 children so far this year — a 60 percent increase over 2018.

“As you are aware, we are responding to a historical crisis at the border,” she said, adding that in the current fiscal year her agency had received more referrals than for the entire 2018 fiscal year.

In May, the average length of stay at Homestead was 35 days, she said, compared with 44 days at the state-licensed, longer-term shelters.

Tetiana Anderson, a spokeswoman for Caliburn International, the private company that operates Homestead, said in response to questions that, “Every day at the Homestead shelter, over 4,000 bilingual Caliburn employees strive to provide the highest level of care and to unite each child with a vetted sponsor as swiftly as possible.”

“The truth is the children at the Homestead temporary emergency shelter are provided a wide range of services — medical and behavioral care, daily educational classes, recreational exercise both inside and outside. The physical and emotional well-being of each and every child is the shelter’s primary concern,” she said.

After the closing of the tent camp for migrant children at Tornillo, the government announced that it would double the capacity at Homestead, which had operated briefly under President Obama.

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The Trump administration closed a tent city for migrant children in Tornillo, on the Texas border.Credit...Mike Blake/Reuters

Unlike Tornillo, Homestead is operated by a for-profit company, Comprehensive Health Services, owned by Caliburn — and there is no sign that it will be functioning only temporarily.

But like the tent city in Texas, the facility in Florida is not subject to state regulations and inspections intended to guarantee child welfare — only to a loose set of Department of Health and Human Services guidelines.

In contrast, permanent shelters traditionally used to detain minors must abide by state requirements for staff vetting and training, as well as standards that ensure minors are educated and safe.

Ms. Stauffer, the spokeswoman for the refugee agency overseeing Homestead and more than 165 other migrant shelters in 23 states, said the agency was preparing to open another temporary influx shelter in Carrizo Springs, Tex., expected to hold 1,300 minors. A new permanent facility just opened that will house about 100 youngsters in Lake Worth, Fla.

The pilgrimage of Democratic candidates began on Tuesday, when Representative Eric Swalwell of California dropped in to greet a cadre of regular protesters.

More than a dozen candidates are expected to visit by the end of the week; Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii scheduled stops for Thursday.

On Friday, a local congresswoman, Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Miami, plans to arrive with a gaggle of candidates: Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro of Texas; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Senator Kamala Harris of California; former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado; and the spiritual guru Marianne Williamson.

During her visit, Ms. Warren, mobbed by television cameras, took the hand of Summit Wicks-Lim, 8, and they climbed step ladders to peek into the shelter property.

At first, there was little activity. “There’s no children out right now,” said Summit, who had come from Massachusetts with her mother.

Then, several children came out in single file, Ms. Warren said.

Some of them looked over. Ms. Warren, in sunglasses and a baseball cap, and Summit, in sunglasses and braids, waved. Ms. Warren lifted Summit up so she could see a little better.

“Los queremos!” activists yelled out to them in Spanish. We care about you.

“Estamos luchando por ustedes. No están solos,” read one of their banners. We are fighting for you. You are not alone.

Some of the protesters raised big red cardboard hearts.

Patricia Mazzei in Homestead contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: At a Florida Shelter, Days Become Months For Migrant Children. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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