Washington Times
By Stephen Dinan
October 19, 2014
Want
to bid for a contract to care for the illegal immigrant children coming
across the border? Make sure your staff members get Hepatitis vaccines
and regular TB tests
and can speak foreign languages — probably Spanish but maybe Mandarin,
suggesting a surprising number of the children are coming from China.
The
federal government guarantees the children three meals a day, and they
must take account of health, religious observance or vegetarian diets.
The children also have
a right to second helpings, according to contract documents issued last
month seeking a transportation company to ferry the children within
Texas.
Even
though the surge of unaccompanied children has slowed, the government
is still issuing multimillion-dollar contracts to provide care,
transportation, translation
and other services for the 66,000 who got through the border over the
past year and the thousands still entering the country each month.
The
150-page request for transportation proposals, posted online at
government contractor website fbo.gov, was issued by U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement to MVM
Inc., a large security contractor founded by a former Secret Service
agent and based in Ashburn, Virginia.
MVM
Vice President Christopher McHale confirmed in an email that his
company did win the contract, which the website says is worth $192
million, but he declined to talk
about any of the details.
“MVM does not make public comments as to the operation of any government contracts,” Mr. McHale said.
Overall,
the contract speaks to the tenuous balance between social worker and
corrections officer that those dealing with the surge of children must
strike. The children
are not in criminal proceedings but are still sometimes security risks.
Because they are not entitled to be in the U.S., there is always the
danger of flight.
“The
government needs to be honest with the public about the number of
individuals who have come across the border who have been found either
to have criminal records,
gang connections or sufficiently troubled to have to be placed in
specific facilities designed for wayward, delinquent youths,” said Dan
Cadman, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports a
crackdown on immigration.
ICE
agents and officers won’t find anything surprising in the contract.
They deal with the same situation every day as they try to strike a
balance between law enforcement
and the humanitarian concerns placed upon them.
“This
is really very unique to us. No other law enforcement organization has
to go to these lengths with regard to the treatment of their population
that they deal with.
This is very unique to us at ICE,” said Chris Crane, president of the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, which represents ICE agents
and officers.
One
of the challenges stressed by the contract is the language barrier. The
children are mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where
Spanish predominates, though
some of the children also speak indigenous Mayan languages.
But
the documents specifically list Mandarin as the third most prominent
language, suggesting a significant number of Chinese children must be
arriving as well.
“Contractor must provide sufficient access to translation,” the document orders.
ICE
told potential contractors it had a list of the top five languages they
should be prepared to handle, but the agency was unable to provide that
list when queried by
The Washington Times.
The
contract documents, however, make clear how important language is when
dealing with unaccompanied alien children, or UAC, which is the
government’s official term for
the children.
“Because
children differ in comprehension levels, simple language with the
appropriate tone is required,” one document says. “The contractor shall
always be aware that
UAC and families may be intimidated by authority figures; therefore, to
avoid any confusion, the contractor should explain to the UAC and
families prior to the transport what to expect during his/her
transport.”
One in 200 of the children is estimated to have special needs, indicating some sort of disability.
At
times, the contract reads like a celebrity’s agreement for an
appearance, with strict guidelines on how the children are to be
addressed and guarantees of snacks and
second helpings of food. Movies and video games must be provided on
trips over a certain length of time.
But
peppered throughout are reminders of the potentially dangerous
situation. The document contains repeated reminders that some of the
children may be criminals, and
goes into detail about situations in which they may be put in handcuffs
or other restraints.
The
contract document even details what the “transportation specialist”
should do in case of a riot or a hostage situation: “Under no
circumstance shall TS bargain with
or take orders from a hostage taker(s), regardless of the status or
rank of the hostage.”
Also
included in the contract was a list through August of the cities where
the Health and Human Services Department has facilities to hold the
children. It’s a list HHS
officials had been reluctant to release, citing privacy protections for
the illegal immigrants.
Nearly
60 percent of the children ended up being turned over to facilities in
Texas. Nearly 10 percent have been sent to Arizona, 8 percent to the
Chicago area, 6 percent
to California, and the rest scattered throughout the country.
The
Times has requested details through the Freedom of Information Act of
HHS contracts involving the unaccompanied minors, but has not received
those records despite
several months elapsing.
Judicial
Watch, a conservative public interest law group, filed a complaint last
week to try to make the Homeland Security Department comply with a
similar open-records
request for details about another solicitation, issued in January by
ICE, that projected a surge of 65,000 illegal immigrant children this
year.
The
administration seemed surprised by the surge in May and June and
scrambled to issue contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial
Watch, said the documents they are seeking will show that’s false.
“Any
notion that the administration is surprised or is not aware of the
impact of its policies and pronouncements causing a wave of illegal
immigration — this proves that
that’s absolutely false,” he said.
Like
The Times, Judicial Watch filed its request months ago and ICE is well
past the deadlines set in the law for providing the information.
“With
the Obama administration, we have to file lawsuits just to get them to
respond to our request,” he said. “Any veil [the administration] had of
being in favor of
transparency is completely dropped.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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