Hundreds of unaccompanied teenage refugees between the ages of 13 and 17 are evacuated in an emergency when a refugee shelter in Houston, Texas, USA, suddenly closes on April 17, 2021. (Screenshot from Fox News website)
A refugee shelter in Houston, Texas, U.S., has abruptly closed and hundreds of unaccompanied teenage refugees between the ages of 13 and 17 have been evacuated in an emergency, with ambulances and police cars appearing outside the facility, girls with sad expressions and others appearing to wipe away tears. Some refugee advocates told the media that “some kind of incident” had occurred at the shelter the day before.
According to Fox News, an incident at a refugee shelter near Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport was suspected to have occurred late last Friday night (16). On Saturday morning, all 450 unaccompanied immigrant girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were evacuated from the shelter, and authorities arranged for buses to transport them to other locations.
Local authorities were evasive about why the Houston shelter was closed, but a refugee advocate told The Associated Press there was “some kind of incident” at the shelter Friday night when ambulances and police cars showed up outside the facility, the paper said.
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed to the media that the refugee shelter facility had been closed. The facility has been in operation as a temporary shelter for the girls for less than three weeks.
The Associated Press reports that the abruptly closed shelter in Houston was an emergency drop-off point for unaccompanied children and was operated by the National Association of Christian Churches (NACC).
Cesar Espinosa, head of the immigrant-serving civic organization FIEL Houston, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the evacuated girls seemed quite confused about what was going on. “The people there looked sad, with their heads down, as if they were drying their tears,” he said.
Espinoza, who had actually visited the shelter, said that despite the fact that the Communist virus (COVID-19) was still a pandemic, the girls in the shelter were still forced to live in crowded conditions with absolutely no space for social distance, everything was makeshift, and it was quite difficult for the girls to use the restroom and shower.
Several media outlets had already reported on the overcrowded conditions at the refugee shelter in Houston before the shelter closed. It is not clear if the evacuation of hundreds of girls on Saturday had anything to do with this.
The Houston Chronicle reported Saturday that an adult employee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services died Friday night, but the incident does not appear to be related to the transfer of the girls from the shelter.
The influx of illegal immigrants and unaccompanied minors at the U.S. southern border has become a humanitarian crisis since the Biden administration took office. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was assigned by Biden last month to deal with the migrant crisis at the border, has so far failed to visit the border, a performance that Harris has been widely criticized for.
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