The Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center has become the second temporary facility located in California to hold and house several migrant children who migrated and traveled to the southern United States border without their parents, caregivers, or legal guardians.
The Long Beach facility, which offers more than 400,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space, would increase and ramp up to hold as many as 1,000 children at once. In recent weeks, the San Diego and Texas Convention Centers, in which Texas has the most temporary facilities, also started taking in and housing migrant children.
The city of Long Beach’s contract with the federal Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement, would last for approximately 90 to 120 days, until August 2nd.
The migrant children would stay at the facility until they can be connected with sponsors or reunited with family members. Robert Garcia, a Peruvian-American politician who is the 28th and current mayor of Long Beach, California said the city has a history of welcoming refugees, such as Cambodians after thousands sought genocide in their homeland in the 1970s and 1980s.
“As an immigrant,” Garcia said, “I know how important it is to support all people, especially children — and I am proud to support our country in this important work.”
On April 5th, 14,287 children were in the custody of the Refugee Resettlement office after being transferred from Customs and Border Protection.
The U.S. Customs & Border Protection, the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, and the country's primary border control organization is required to transfer unaccompanied children in its custody to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours.
“Long Beach has a long history welcoming and supporting immigrants and refugees,” Garcia said in a tweet. “We have been asked by the Biden Administration to assist in welcoming these children as they are reunited with family.” Adding how proud he is to support our country and these kids.
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