Miami, Florida- Today, officials from the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the Biden administration is planning to reopen the Homestead detention center in Miami-Dade county to detain unaccompanied immigrant children. The facility, which was renamed the Biscayne Influx Care Facility, was shut down in 2019 and has faced multiple reports of child sexual abuse, neglect, and dangerous living conditions.
Thomas Kennedy, Florida State Coordinator of United We Dream, said:
“I am disgusted and horrified that the Biden administration has chosen to reopen a detention camp where children have consistently faced abuse and neglect. No human being should ever be put in the type of danger that the Biden administration is actively choosing to put hundreds to thousands of children in right now.
President Biden vowed to protect immigrant communities, vocalizing his disgust with the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant cruelty these past four years and the policies that allowed children to be ruthlessly ripped from their mother’s arms and thrown in cages. Reopening Homestead will only continue this dark legacy by unnecessarily and cruelly subjecting children to even more pain and trauma.
Many of the children who arrive as unaccompanied minors have guardians and other family members in the U.S. whose care they can and should be released to. The Biden administration has full discretion to prioritize these family ties. We demand Homestead be shut down for good and urge the Biden administration to use every tool at its disposal to release immigrants from detention and reconnect these children with loved ones and guardians already living in the U.S.”
