BORDER/CHILDREN/IMMIGRATION/MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Pentagon is assessing how — and where — to house as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children on American military bases, a spokesman said on Thursday [6-21-18]. In a Pentagon statement, Lt. Col. Michael Andrews said officials from the Department of Health and Human Services have so far visited three military bases in Texas and one in Arkansas as the Trump administration seeks to provide temporary shelter for unaccompanied children entering the United States. Colonel Andrews indicated that no decisions have been made… The Pentagon and Health and Human Services Department ‘are working closely to determine the requirements and timing for support,’ Colonel Andrews said. Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, questioned how such a plan to house 20,000 children could work…The request comes as federal agencies on Thursday offered competing and contradictory explanations of what was happening to immigrant families in the hours after Mr. Trump’s order, leaving it unclear where families were being held and whether they were being prosecuted. New, makeshift detention facilities are being envisioned to house thousands of immigrant families that are illegally entering the United States following President Trump’s executive order on Wednesday [6-20-18], which called for detaining parents and children together instead of separating them.”
-Michael D. Shear and Helene Cooper, “Pentagon Asked to Prepare Housing for Up to 20,000 Migrant Children,” The New York Times online, June 21, 2018