Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moved to block federal housing for child migrants in the Lone Star State by ordering child-care regulators to pull licenses for the facilities that house minors detained after crossing the border illegally.
Abbott issued the directive on Tuesday that would affect 4,223 unaccompanied children who are being held in state-licensed facilities or child placement agencies, the Dallas Morning News reported.
There are 52 state-licensed residential operations and child placement agencies in Texas that have contracts with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement and care for the children.
About 17,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children are in the US, according to Health and Human Services.
Abbott, a Republican, said he had to issue the executive order because the situation was causing a crisis in foster care.
“The unabated influx of individuals resulting from federal government policies threatens to negatively impact state-licensed residential facilities, including those that serve Texas children in foster care,” Abbott said in the order.
He accused the federal government of “commandeering” state resources to make it for their own blunders.
“There are several counties in Texas, more than a dozen counties in Texas, that requested a gubernatorial disaster declaration for the border,” Abbott told the Dallas Morning News. “I declared their disaster declaration.”
The Biden administration, struggling to handle the influx of young migrants arriving in the US, has resorted to using military bases to house the children.
A spokesman for HHS was asked if the federal agency would try to block Abbott’s order.
“HHS’s top priority is the health and safety of the children in our care. We are assessing the Texas directive concerning licensed facilities providing care to unaccompanied children and do not intend to close any facilities as a result of the order,” the spokesman told the newspaper.
Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who toured the border on Wednesday and urged the Biden administration to address the surge of migrants, was asked during an appearance on Fox News about the 5-year-old boy who had been abandoned by smugglers at the border in Texas.
“What we’re seeing at the border is only a snapshot of what happens to these people. Imagine the hundreds of miles that they go without any US interventions like we have here at the border,” Cuellar said.
“Imagine what happens to them when they’re doing the dangerous trek from Honduras, El Salvador through Mexico. Imagine what happens to the people that get raped, get assaulted, you know, including young kids. We’re only seeing a snapshot. We don’t see what’s happening in those countries,” he continued.
Video showed the boy sobbing as he pleaded with the smugglers not to leave him alone.
“Where are you going? … No, no, no. Don’t leave,” he called to the man and woman who left him at the border near El Paso, Texas.
