500 Unaccompanied Minors to Be Housed in Emergency Holding Facility in San Antonio

Children and teenagers who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border wait to be processed after entering the site of a temporary holding facility south of Midland, Texas, on March 14, 2021. Eli Hartman/Odessa American via AP

Five hundred unaccompanied minors will arrive on Monday evening at an emergency holding facility in San Antonio, Texas, which was set up to address the surge in illegal border crossings in recent weeks.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) said the Freeman Expo Center has been partly transformed to provide shelter for boys aged between 13 and 17 who had crossed into the United States illegally. The center has a potential capacity of 2,100 beds with an additional 300 medical beds.