US cancels non-essential services for kids at migrant shelters
The US government has cancelled what it describes as non-essential services for children at migrant shelters, citing a lack of funding.
According to US officials, activities not linked to the children's physical safety, such as education and legal services as well as recreation are scaled down.
"We don't want to make these reductions but the law requires us to do so until Congress appropriates additional funds," Mark Weber, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), told AFP.
HHS currently needs $2.88 billion dollars in order to be able to address the crisis.
The Trump administration’s policy of “zero tolerance” in May last year resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents at the southern border and placed into HHS custody.
Minors who cross the southern US border without an adult are classified as Unaccompanied Alien Children. They are sent to camps until they can be reunited with their parents or US-based relatives.
Presently, more than 13,000 children and teens, most of them from Central America, are being held in shelters in 23 states across the United States.
A scathing report in May showed that US border agents had neglected and physically and sexually abused more than 100 migrant children who were in their custody.
The report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the University of Chicago Law School International Human Rights Clinic was based on thousands of pages of records detailing accusations from 116 unaccompanied migrant children in temporary US detention centers.
Some minors accused US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents of punching or kicking them and running them over with vehicles. Others said they were tased and verbally abused by officers.
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