United States

Trump Admin's ‘Tent Cities' Cost More Than Keeping Migrant Kids With Parents: Official

HHS is "aggressively looking for potential sites" for more "tent cities," the official said

It costs $775 per person per night to hold migrant children separated from their parents in new "tent cities," an official at the Department of Health and Human Services told NBC News.

The urgency of bringing in security, air conditioning, medical workers and other government contractors is the reason for the high cost, which far surpasses that of routinely staffed structures, according to the official and several former officials.

It costs $256 per person per day to keep children in permanent HHS facilities like Casa Padre in Brownsville, Texas, and $298 per resident per day to keep children with their parents in detention centers like Customs and Immigration Enforcement facility in Dilley, Texas.

HHS is "aggressively looking for potential sites" for more "tent cities" to accommodate the surge of migrant children separated from their parents under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy on illegal border crossing, the source said.

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