The Trump administration has started sending a majority of undocumented children who came to the US alone and have new immigration court cases to Texas, where government facilities for them are unlicensed, their chances of getting a lawyer are low and advocates fear that “a deportation churn-out factory” awaits them, the Guardian has learned. Almost 80% of children in federal custody who arrived unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian and who were placed in immigration court proceedings in July – and over 90% in August – have been funneled into shelter networks somewhere in Texas, a dramatic upswing from the months prior, according to analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian from researchers at the immigration data insights platform bklg.org. This is understood to amount to a total of 925 children in the care of the Health and Human Services (HHS) department’s office of refugee resettlement (ORR) and in open immigration court proceedings based in Texas, with 651 sent there in July and August alone.
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