The three temporary shelters opened at military sites to help cope with the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the border — including Naval Base Ventura County — will close within two months, federal officials said Monday.
The Administration for Children and Families, a branch of Health and Human Services, "proactively expanded capacity to care for children in standard shelters, which are significantly less costly facilities," spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said in an email. "At the same time, we have seen a decrease in the number of children crossing the southwest border."
The temporary shelters at Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas and Fort Sill Army Base in Oklahoma cared for more than 7,700 children since opening in May and early June, Wolfe said.
The Oklahoma shelter is expected to close by Friday, while the Texas and Port Hueneme shelters will "continue to phase down" and "end operations over the next two to eight weeks," he added.
The shelter at Naval Base Ventura County is slated to close by Aug. 31, according to county health officials.
Southwest Key Programs, the Texas-based nonprofit contracted to operate the shelter, informed West Ventura Medical Clinic Director Dr. Ramsey Ulrich Thursday the facility would stop operating at the end of the month, clinic manager Kristina Navarro said.
About 110 immigrant teenagers were living at the local shelter Monday morning, which has a maximum capacity of 575 people.
Since the shelter opened June 6, nearly 1,430 13- to 17-year-olds have been temporarily housed and discharged to a family member or sponsor living in the United States.
Custody of an unaccompanied minor detained at the border is transferred within 72 hours to Health and Human Services, which has about 100 permanent shelters near the southwest border.
But the shelters became overwhelmed as 57,000 unaccompanied minors — primarily from Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras — were detained after illegally crossing the border during a nine-month time period ending in June.
That number is expected to hit 90,000 by the end of September — a nearly fourfold increase from the 24,000 unaccompanied minors detained by Customs and Border Patrol during the 2013 fiscal year, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Since the beginning of July, however, the number of unaccompanied children apprehended at the border has decreased, Wolfe said.
The Defense Department had recently extended the use of the three military facilities as shelters through January, along with agreeing to provide space for another 5,000 beds.
"The three temporary shelters on military bases could be reopened for a limited time if the number of children increases significantly," Wolfe said.