US waived FBI checks on staff at growing teen migrant camp
TORNILLO, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration has put the safety of thousands of teens at a migrant detention camp at risk by waiving FBI fingerprint checks for their caregivers and short-staffing mental health workers, according to an Associated Press investigation and a new federal watchdog report.
None of the 2,100 staffers at a tent city holding more than 2,300 teens in the remote Texas desert are going through rigorous FBI fingerprint background checks, according to a Health and Human Services inspector general memo published Tuesday.
"Instead, Tornillo is using checks conducted by a private contractor that has access to less comprehensive data, thereby heightening the risk that an individual with a criminal history could have direct access to children," the memo says.
In addition, the federal government is allowing the nonprofit running the facility — BCFS Health and Human Services — to sidestep mental health care requirements. Under federal policy, migrant youth shelters generally must have one mental health clinician for every 12 kids, but the federal agency's contract with BCFS allows it to staff Tornillo with just one clinician for every 100 children. That's not enough to provide adequate mental health care, the inspector general office said in the memo.
Read more: https://www.oaoa.com/news/us_news/article_1c67e4eb-5bf0-56db-8b7c-61bab50d4c91.html
(Odessa American)
