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The Trump administration’s “temporary” prison camp for migrant kids in Tornillo, Texas, isn’t just child abuse with a tent over it, it’s also costing taxpayers an arm and a leg. Every child jailed there by officials costs $750 per night, the Huffington Post reports.
The costs will become astronomical once the prison camp reaches full capacity. When it opened earlier this summer, it had 400 beds. But the Trump administration has already extended this “temporary” prison camp three times, shuffling children there by the hundreds every week under the cover of night so they won’t escape. By the end of the year, capacity could reach 3,800 jailed children.
“For every month that the Trump administration locks up a single undocumented minor in the Texas desert,” the Huffington Post continues, “it pays more than the annual cost of putting a student through state college, complete with room and board.” By comparison, detaining a child in a physical detention center costs $256 per bed per night. But children do not belong in jail, and putting them in humane, proven alternatives to detention with their families costs just $6 a day. Better yet, release them to sponsors, who are oftentimes relatives.
“To cover the gap” of wasting millions upon millions on jailing vulnerable families instead of welcoming them, “HHS reshuffled about $260 million last month from other parts of its budget, as Yahoo! News first reported. Among the losers in the battle of priorities are cancer research ($13.3 million), Head Start preschool ($16.7 million) and HIV prevention ($5.7 million).” But party of fiscal responsibility, right?
Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda is driving us into the poorhouse, both economically and morally. “The indefinite detention of minors, in questionable facilities, will negatively impact these kids and is degrading our budget,” tweeted Congress member Joaquin Castro of Texas. “These resources could be used for other things to make America better like infrastructure, healthcare, and better paying jobs.”