Trump Administration Wants To Build Migrant Quarantine Facilities On Border

By Michel Marizco
Published: Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 3:06pm

Yuma tent quarantine facility
Michel Marizco/KJZZ
Under the government's request to Congress, tent structures like this one that was built last year in Yuma would be turned into quarantine facilities.

The Trump administration is asking Congress for several hundred million dollars to fund coronavirus quarantine facilities for immigrants in custody at the border. 

The administration asked for $249 million for nine facilities it wants to build along the border and to upgrade four more that served as holding tents during last year’s surge of asylum seekers at the border. 

In previous years, the two Homeland Security agencies that manage migrants in custody — both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — faced criticism over treatment of migrants in their custody. 

Dr. Hannah Janeway is an emergency physician and runs the nonprofit Refugee Health Alliance in southern California. 

"I’m very concerned that they are not going to be able to properly determine whether or not someone who has those types of symptoms needs hospital care," Janeway said.

The funding request includes $32 million for CBP staff’s own protective equipment. 

→ Read The Latest News On The Coronavirus Disease  

Yuma tent quarantine facility
Michel Marizco/KJZZ
Under the government's request to Congress, tent structures like this one that was built last year in Yuma would be turned into quarantine facilities.

Fronteras