The Trump administration is proposing a large-scale shelter that officials have said could hold as many as 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children who entered the United States without a parent or guardian, The Independent reported. Federal agencies have been expanding detention and removal work that includes children, the report said, while also restricting asylum access along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Those children are now placed in more than 150 shelters nationwide, according to the report. They could instead be housed on “emergency influx facility” campuses with physicians, teachers, and other “humanitarian care” staff if officials respond to “surges” at the southern border, based on a market research call with potential service providers described by The Independent.
No site has been chosen yet, and officials have appeared prepared to move once contracts are awarded by the end of this year. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told The Independent that “there are currently no immediate plans to establish such a facility.”
Health officials outline draft shelter requirements and legal-care changes
The spokesperson said a virtual industry roundtable “is standard procedure” for market research on what the agency would need in a facility. “Characterizing this virtual roundtable as anything other than a standard procedure is journalistic malpractice and is a complete misrepresentation of the truth,” the person said.
The Tuesday session laid out draft requirements the Office of Refugee Resettlement “may request in order to fulfill its statutory responsibility” to care for unaccompanied minors sent over by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the Health Department. “ORR solicited feedback and questions from industry leaders as part of a standard method to improve requirements before facility plans are finalized,” the spokesperson added.
The agency “must remain prepared at all times to standup a temporary housing facility” for unaccompanied minors, “should an influx occur,” the person said. “ORR will not wait for an influx to occur before seeking out a contractor who can meet the statutory requirements of an ORR facility,” the person added. “ORR is committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of the unaccompanied children placed in its care, and that means being prepared for any possible scenarios at all times.”
The Independent reported that the call described rooms that could hold up to eight children, with up to eight children sharing one toilet, shower, and sink. A spokesperson told The Independent that those parameters are “completely untrue.” The report also said the sites would need an eight-foot perimeter fence.
Officials have also sought sites within 30 miles of a hospital, within 60 miles of an airport, and within 30 miles of pediatric care, behavioral health providers, dentists, and diagnostic imaging and laboratory services, according to the report. Quarantine space would need at least 40 beds in a 400-bed site, 100 beds in a 1,000-bed site, and 300 beds in a 3,000-bed site, the report said.
Recreation space would not have to be outdoors. The government typically requires at least one acre of recreation area per 100 children, but that “does not need to be a single continuous plot,” according to the administration. “It can be a combination of indoor and outdoor,” officials said Tuesday.
“Task orders” under the contract may increase to requests for as many as 3,000 beds “depending on the government’s need,” a spokesperson for the agency told The Independent. “During performance, within the maximum, the government can adjust the actual number of beds ordered up or down as needed in 50-bed increments,” the person added.
The Independent reported that the plan arrives as the administration has altered long-standing legal-service arrangements for thousands of immigrant children in federal custody. The administration’s immigration enforcement has created difficult choices for families, as a linked story details how Tennessee families must now choose between lifesaving care for their children and immigration reporting.
Since Trump returned to the White House, immigration judges have issued more than 10,000 removal and voluntary deportation orders for immigrant minors each month, according to ProPublica.
Lawyers for unaccompanied migrant children earlier stopped a late-night effort to deport Guatemalan minors in government custody after affidavits described fears of being sent back, the report said. Attorneys for children now in government-supported foster programs and long-term shelters later accused the administration of trying to push self-deportation through “misinformation, coercion, threats and fear.”
Unaccompanied immigrant children are held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Health Department’s Administration for Children and Families. The legal framework for protecting unaccompanied minors is facing real-world tests, as a small Georgia town is using a novel strategy to challenge a federal immigration facility plan.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act requires the government to “ensure, to the greatest extent practicable,” that all unaccompanied minors receive legal counsel “to represent them in legal proceedings” and to “protect them from mistreatment, exploitation and trafficking.”
About 20,000 immigrant children effectively lost that representation overnight after a long-standing contract with the Acacia Center for Justice ended last month, according to the report. Texas-based Burke Law Group, which does not appear to have experience representing unaccompanied children, later withdrew after the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to award the firm $150 million.
“We have decided not to apply for a grant or a contract and we withdrew from consideration,” the firm said on X last week. Several Democratic senators have asked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to explain how the firm came under consideration. Marcella Burke, the firm’s founder and managing partner, previously worked in the first Trump administration, the report said.
The administration then awarded a no-bid contract worth at least $158 million to Our Rescue, formerly Operation Underground Railroad, whose founder resigned amid allegations of sexual abuse, forced labor, and trafficking, The Independent reported. Federal filings cited in the report said Our Rescue could receive more than $244 million under the contract.
“Our Rescue is steadfast on our mission to help vulnerable children across the U.S. and around the world,” CEO Derek Benner said in a statement shared with The Independent. “These are among the most vulnerable children in the world, and they deserve nothing less than the full weight of our experience. We welcome this responsibility and are working on their behalf.”
Published: Sep 22, 2026 07:30 am