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The controversial tent facility that housed 6,200 migrant children near Tornillo, Texas, since June released its last child today. My coverage for @TexasMonthly traced the history of the facility and provided a number of exclusives. Here’s a look back at the coverage. 1/
The facility opened amid the Trump administration’s family separation policy in June. @HurdontheHill, whose district includes Tornillo, was the first member of Congress to go inside and shared what he saw with me. 2/ texasmonthly.com/news/inside-te…
Tornillo became controversial immediately. El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles refused to allow his deputies to moonlight as security for the facility. 3/ texasmonthly.com/politics/el-pa…
Although set up during family separation, Tornillo housed few children who had been taken from their parents. Instead, it was a new policy on sponsoring children arriving at the border without parent or guardian that would define Tornillo’s future. 4/ texasmonthly.com/news/agency-ov…
Tornillo opened with 400 beds, but the Trump administration had immediate plans to grow it to 4,000. It offered 2 Texas companies a billion-dollar, no-bid contract to do that work. They said no, and family separation was abandoned the next day. 5/ texasmonthly.com/news/texas-com…
As new policies governing sponsorship of unaccompanied migrant children took root, the population of kids in government custody exploded, leading to Tornillo’s expansion – first to 500 beds, then 3,800. 6/ texasmonthly.com/news/tornillo-…
BCFS, the San Antonio-based nonprofit operating Tornillo under government contract, had long expressed discomfort with administration policies. In November, the BCFS spokeswoman told me it wanted out of the contract. 7/ texasmonthly.com/news/operators…
Tornillo and the unaccompanied migrant children program received little congressional attention while Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. After Dems won control of the House in November, it became clear that was going to change. 8/ texasmonthly.com/news/rosa-dela…
As part of the bill to keep the government open in early December, the Trump administration asked for another $190 million to hold unaccompanied migrant children. “Over my dead body,” said @RosaDeLauro. 9/ texasmonthly.com/article/more-m…
In mid-December, I wrote the first story about a plan that could lead to the closure of Tornillo. BCFS was using its contract leverage to get the administration to alter onerous sponsorship requirements. 10/ texasmonthly.com/news/private-o…
Three days later, the administration announced changes to a controversial fingerprint policy for potential sponsors, as BCFS had urged. Thousands of children would soon be released from government custody. 11/ texasmonthly.com/news/trump-fin…
This week, I reported that the last child would be released from Tornillo by the weekend. On Friday, @HurdontheHill tweeted that the last child had left the facility. 12/ texasmonthly.com/news/migrant-c…
Tornillo will be empty of tents and other incarceration infrastructure by the end of the month. But that won’t be the end of the story. More than 10,000 children remain in government custody. Expect lots more oversight by @RosaDeLauro and @HurdontheHill, among others. 13/
