WASHINGTON — The federal government is shutting three temporary shelters that had been opened to house a surge of unaccompanied children from Central America entering the United States across the southern border, officials said Monday afternoon.
The shelters at military bases in Texas, Oklahoma, and California had provided housing for more than 7,700 children since they were opened in May and June.
But officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which shelters migrant children while their cases are pending, said the emergency shelters were no longer needed.
“We are able to take this step because we have proactively expanded capacity to care for children in standard shelters, which are significantly less costly facilities,” department officials said in a statement. “At the same time, we have seen a decrease in the number of children crossing the Southwest border.”
Administration officials have said in the last two weeks that the flow of migrant children across the southern border has begun to slow, though they have cautioned that they do not know if the pace might increase again.
For now, officials said they no longer need the extra space. The shelter at Fort Sill in Oklahoma will no longer be used after Aug. 8, while the shelters at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas and Naval Base Ventura County-Port Hueneme in California will be phased out over the next several weeks.
Health Department officials said the three shelters could be reopened if there is a new surge.