Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Could Be Headed for Westminster

The federal government is reportedly considering the former U.S. Army Reserve complex in Westminster as a shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children.

Westminster Mayor Kevin Utz told WJZ he learned Thursday night that federal officials planned to tour the facility "to see if it has the ability to house these types of folks."

The building contains small rooms, a kitchen and classroom space, with barbed wire outside, according to WBAL, which reports it is "not in move-in condition." It has been vacant for two decades, WJZ reported.

Due to the number of children crossing the Mexican border without adults—90,000 are projected this year, versus 24,000 last year—the federal government has opened temporary shelters at three military bases in Texas, Oklahoma and California and is scrambling to find additional locations across the country, CBS DC reported. 

Approximately 250 children have been crossing the Mexican border daily, most from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, according to The Baltimore Sun.

They are running from gang violence and have heard the U.S. "is treating young illegal immigrants with unprecedented leniency," The Washington Post reports.

By law, U.S. border patrol agents send unaccompanied children who are from noncontiguous countries to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates 100 long-term shelters, according to Education Week. The average length of stay is 35 days before a child is released to a parent or adult sponsor, Education Week reports.

The shelters are bursting at the seams, so some children are staying in border patrol stations and approximately 1,000 were sent to a warehouse in Arizona, according to CBS DC.

The federal government has been searching for a long-term shelter site in Maryland since at least last month.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement, considered a former Prince George's County orphanage that was later a drug treatment facility; the complex in Baltimore City that previously housed the Social Security Administration; and a Montgomery County boarding school, according to The Baltimore Sun, which reported all were deemed unsuitable. The Baltimore City facility was reportedly scrapped because it was not designed for residential use.

According to WJZ, the decision on the Westminster facility may come as soon as Sunday.