As if what’s happening at the border and across these makeshift holding centers wasn’t dangerous for children enough, but doubles down on the crisis. The White House has reportedly offered 4 weeks of vacation to select federal employees who volunteer to take a few migrant children off of their hands.
The overcrowding and lack of planning on Biden’s part have caused White House officials to think outside of the box on what do to with the overwhelming surge of children in holding. This new plan, by far is the most preposterous.
The administration reportedly sent this request out in an email requesting help with the Unaccompanied Alien Children, or UACs, according to The New York Times.
“The desperate plea landed this week in the email inboxes of employees in government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and NASA: Will you consider taking a four-month paid leave from your job to help care for migrant children in government-run shelters packed with new arrivals at the border?” the Times reported.
“The request to much of the federal workforce came from the Department of Health and Human Services, which is at the heart of a frantic effort by the Biden administration to keep up with a surge in young people crossing the southwestern border hoping to reunite with relatives already in the United States,” the paper wrote.
Biden is not known for placing migrant children in safe and healthy situations. Just last week Texas Governor Greg Abbott was demanding a facility in San Antonio be shut down immediately following allegations of sexual abuse and neglect:
“This facility is a health and safety nightmare,” Abbott said. “The Biden administration is now presiding over the abuse of children. To end this abuse, the Biden administration must immediately shut down this facility.”
The White House pushed back denying all claims and refusing to close the facility:
“Well, first we take safety and the well-being of children in our care very seriously, hence our earlier conversation about the funding spent to keep them safe during the pandemic,” Psaki said. “His claims will be looked into and investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services.”
She added: “Currently we have no basis for his call to shut down the San Antonio Freeman Coliseum as an intake site but we will of course — we take these allegations seriously and they will be investigated.”
It’s not clear at this time if any such investigation has begun.