Some migrant children stuck overnight on parked buses before going to family or sponsors, advocate says Dasha Burns and Julia Ainsley and Didi Martinez and Anthony Terrell
DALLAS In a vast parking lot outside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, minors who migrated to the U.S. without their parents are waiting on buses to be sent to live with relatives or sponsors, staying overnight, eating and using the bathroom all within the confines of the bus, according to the owner of one of the bus companies and advocates for the children.
In at least one case described to NBC News, a family says their 15-year-old son waited on buses from Saturday to Wednesday before beginning the long journey from Dallas to Seattle.
Inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, some children cry uncontrollably on metal cots lined up in rows in a massive hallway, volunteers say. Calls to their families can be few and far between, and they usually only get sunlight when bathing in outdoor showers.
In March, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced that up to 3,000 teenage boys would be brought to the convention center. The facility is one of several temporary emergency shelters scattered across the country to house unaccompanied migrant teenagers. The Biden administration set these temporary facilities up because there wasn t enough space in existing ones.
Dallas’ Emergency Shelter For Unaccompanied Minors From Southern Border Set To Shut Down By End Of Month Syndicated Local – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – The Dallas emergency shelter at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center for unaccompanied minors picked up at the Southern Border is set to shut down by the end of the month.
Some 2,200 teenaged boys were moved there in March, but since then, that number has declined significantly, to 793, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The shelter was established to alleviate the massive influx of children crossing the Mexico border without parents.
Newly elected Southern Baptist Convention President Pastor J.D.Greear, lead pastor of Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, speaks at a news conference at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, on June 12, 2018. | The Christian Post
J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the California-based Saddleback Churchâs decision to ordain three women was âdisappointing,â and urged the denomination to âstand on the bedrock of Godâs Word â whether the issue is the role of pastor or any other issue.â
In a development described by Saddleback as âhistoric,â the church, founded by Rick and Kay Warren, announced that they ordained their first three female pastors, despite being affiliated with the SBC which prohibits female ordination.