When members of the Odessa and Midland community gathered clothes, shoes, and books for the unaccompanied migrant teens from Mexico that had suddenly descended on a vacant man camp in Midland late Sunday night, they were shocked to be turned away by Red Cross workers on behalf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) authorities.
“It's the federal government who is providing them with a new set of clothes and anything else they need,” said Midland Mayor Patrick Payton. “It paints a picture that the community doesn't want to take care of them and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Neither Mayor Payton, Midland County Judge Terry Johnson nor U.S. Representative August Pfluger was informed of the decision that allowed the migrant teens to move into the man camp facility, which is owned by Cotton Industries, according to Your Basin News.
“There was no facilitation whatsoever of whether we could do this, whether we wanted to do this or how this would be done, and that puts fear, skepticism, and doubt in the minds of people in the community,” Payton told the Midland Times.
Payton added that there is very little communication between HHS, DHS, and community leaders unless they ask specific questions.
“We were told the property has been leased by the federal government for 90 days with an option to renew as a holding facility to accommodate unaccompanied minors,” he said. “At 11:30 p.m. Sunday night, they shipped in 200 federal staff and 485 kids of which 53 are COVID positive."
Your Basin News reported that state Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) sent a letter requesting that Attorney General Ken Paxton file a temporary restraining order to stop the influx.
“I believe the haste and apparent secrecy of this action were designed to avoid soliciting input from local law enforcement, local elected officials, health care services and educational entities,” Seliger said in a statement online.
Payton agrees.
“I've already told our governor that we ought to be suing left and right to stop the federal government and what they're doing even if we're told we have no standing,” he said. “We need to keep suing until we get an opportunity to stop what's happening.”
The age of the migrant teens ranges from 15 to 17 years old, which is the preferred age of human traffickers, according to Payton.
“What we're concerned about with this type of trafficking is these teenagers who make it into the country have a supposed list of contacts in their pocket and we don't know who those contacts are but our law enforcement officials are very confident that among those contacts are those who are intertwined with the cartels and traffickers because they are often co-opted on their way to the border by the cartels, and they will be the ones who will pick them up,” Payton added.