Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Friday said he wants more information on a potential shelter for unaccompanied migrant children that's under review by the federal government -- including how long the Garland County shelter would operate -- before deciding whether to support it or join members of the state's congressional delegation in opposing it.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is assessing whether the former Ouachita Job Corps Center in Royal, near Hot Springs, is suitable for use as a temporary shelter for migrant children age 17 or younger who are apprehended while separated from their guardians, officials have said.
The site assessment follows a fiscal year in which the Health and Human Services Department received a record number of referrals of unaccompanied minors and comes on the heels of the agency opening temporary shelters at a former Job Corps site near Miami and on an Army base that straddles the New Mexico-Texas border, according to news reports.
During a 19-minute interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette at his Capitol office, Hutchinson said it is his "hope" that the federal government finds a different use for the facility. But he did not directly oppose its use as a shelter.
Hutchinson said he believes that the "vast majority" of unaccompanied minors do not pose a security risk, that the program is a "gaping hole" in U.S. immigration laws and that "the solution has to be better border patrol."
"I think the federal delegation is doing the right thing by seeking more information," Hutchinson said. "Sure, if at some point those questions are answered and it looks like the best option and also a service to be rendered, then that door should be open, but I don't think we have information to reach that conclusion yet."
The Republican governor, who from 2003-05 was one of the nation's top immigration officials in the George W. Bush administration, praised the delegation as "prudent" for asking questions of federal officials. Asked specifically what information he sought, Hutchinson listed four questions.
"How long-term this will be?" Hutchinson said. "What children are you looking at that would be coming to the shelter? What is the vetting process? What do we know about them? Those type of facts.
"I rely on our federal delegation to get that information ... as well as the energies of our office in looking at that. But I think those are the important factors. We just don't have enough information flow right now that's coming as to the answers of those questions."
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Hutchinson's comments marked the first time he spoke publicly about the ongoing Health and Human Services Department assessment. Hutchinson said he was first notified of the review Dec. 16.
In a previous interview, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, who opposes the shelter, said that during a conference call, Health and Human Services Department officials said they couldn't provide the answers to similar questions.
"They said they could not provide answers because they are claiming that these minors are not even in the country [yet]," the spokesman, Ryan Saylor, said.
Such holding facilities are a step between the apprehension of unaccompanied children and their longer-term placement with sponsors while their asylum claims, visa applications or deportation cases are heard.
More than 150,000 unaccompanied children have been referred to Health and Human Services over the past three years as minors escape from violence or poverty in some Central American nations. The referrals spiked in 2014 and dropped the following year before hitting a record high of 59,000 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to federal data.
About 95 percent of unaccompanied children referred to the Health and Human Services Department in fiscal 2016 were from Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras, according to federal data. Two-thirds were male, and 78 percent were ages 15-17.
Health and Human Services Department officials toured the now-vacant Ouachita Job Corps Center on Dec. 19. An agency spokesman said Friday that officials have not made a decision on whether to use the former Job Corps site and did not provide a timeline for when a decision will be made.
Federal officials drew rebuke from three members of Arkansas' congressional delegation. Westerman and U.S. Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton in a joint statement said using the facility as a shelter would be "irresponsible and against the wishes of Arkansans."
"[Health and Human Services] is unable to provide basic information about who may reside at this facility, where these immigrants come from, or how long this shelter will last, and the potential risk to public safety is enormous," the Republicans said in the statement. "That is why we are calling on HHS to immediately halt any plans to use this facility as an immigration shelter."
Asked whether he agreed that a shelter would pose a public-safety risk to Garland County, Hutchinson described it as a nuanced issue.
"I think you can say the vast majority would not pose a risk, but you have to worry about that small number that we don't know their history or their purpose," Hutchinson said, citing specific concerns about the possibility of gang members using the system to gain access to the United States.
Northwest Arkansas attorney Drew Devenport, who has been interim director of the immigration law clinic at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville since May, said the biggest misperception about the program is that children are "freely choosing to leave their country just because they think the United States is a golden beacon" rather than leaving to escape dire conditions.
"A lot of their stories are the same," said Devenport, who works for a firm that has handled cases of unaccompanied migrants in Arkansas and other states. "These are poverty-stricken areas [where] the kids don't have access to education. They don't have access to clean water. You couple that with extreme violence and territorial disputes between rival cartels and gangs."
Most of the roughly 100 existing shelters spread across 12 states are within 250 miles of the border, a Health and Human Services Department spokesman previously said. The agency, citing privacy reasons, does not disclose where the shelters are located. None are in Arkansas.
Children spend 34 days at the shelters on average, are vaccinated on arrival, cannot attend local schools, are not allowed to integrate into the local community and remain under staff supervision at all times while in the agency's custody, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
Contractors at the holding facilities provide children with food, education, medical care and recreation.
Once children are released to sponsors -- more than 90 percent of whom are kin -- they are allowed to attend public schools in whatever location they reside.
Nearly 830 unaccompanied children between Oct. 1, 2013, and Oct. 31, 2016, were released to sponsors who live in Arkansas, according to federal data.
"This is a gaping hole in our border patrol system that is rooted in the compassion of the United States," Hutchinson said of the laws relating to unaccompanied children.
Hutchinson previously served as an undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security. In that role he oversaw Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other agencies.
"You're always going to treat minors more carefully, more thoughtfully and differently than you would the average adult coming across," he added later. "We're a compassionate nation. You can't really change the fact that you've got to handle minors differently."
Asked how the system might be changed, Hutchinson said he believes the answer is better border control.
"The solution is not necessarily treating the minors differently when they get here," Hutchinson said. "The solution has to be better border patrol. It really emphasizes the point again that we have to have some control over the processes at our border, over who comes across, because once they get here, particularly when they're minors, our options are more limited."
"Whenever you eliminate the abuse or reduce the abuse, you're going to be focusing on those minors that might come in with legitimate asylum claims that need the United States as a place of refuge," he said. "We're a compassionate nation, but we don't want to be able to use our systems as just a means of entry and permanent status in the United States."
The U.S. Labor Department shut down the Job Corps site this summer despite objections from local officials.
On Dec. 5, the Arkansas National Guard sent a memo to the landowner, the U.S. Forest Service, expressing interest in leasing the Royal facility for its Youth Challenge program, which offers academic, physical, job-skills and other training to teenagers who are at least a year behind in high school credits.
Hutchinson said Youth Challenge would be a "better long-term" use for the facility.
"If you utilize the facility for housing unaccompanied minors, it is primarily an overflow," Hutchinson said. "I would not see that as a long-term investment by the federal government but a temporary strategy. I do hope that they can find a more permanent use of that property that benefits the community and benefits the economy more."
State Desk on 12/31/2016