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Homeland Security Asks Defense Department to House Up to 12,000 Migrants

CBN

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The Department of Defense put out a statement Wednesday that it has received a request from the Department of Homeland Security "to house and care for an alien family population of up to 12,000 people."

According to the update from a Defense Department spokesman, the Pentagon has been asked to "identify any available facilities that could be used for that purpose," and if none are available, to "identify available DoD land and construct semi-separate, soft-sided camp facilities capable of sheltering up to 4,000 people at three separate locations."

DHS prefers the facilities to be built in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico or California to enable access to and supervision of the sites and to comply with the Flores Settlement Agreement's provision that reasonable efforts be made to place minors in the geographic area where the majority are apprehended, defense officials said.

The request comes days after CBN News reported that DHS had plans to ask the Pentagon to approve a proposal for potentially housing more than 7,000 unaccompanied children at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas and 4,000 migrant family members at Fort Bliss.

The Fort Bliss and Goodfellow proposals would require Defense Secretary Jame Mattis' sign-off, and each would bring on contractors to build temporary structures.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at keeping families together at the border after US immigration policies resulted in thousands of undocumented children being separated from their parents after crossing into the United States.
 

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