Trump considering housing 20k unaccompanied migrant children on U.S. military bases

ABC NEWS: 

The Trump administration is considering housing up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children on U.S. military bases, according to a U.S. official.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made the request to the Department of Defense (DOD), and Congress has been notified, the official said.

The story was first reported by The Washington Post.

Last month, ABC News reported that HHS officials were touring four U.S. military bases to see if they could be used to house migrants in the event that other facilities reached capacity. Those bases were Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, and Little Rock Air Force Base in Little Rock, Ark.

While officials have completed their tours of those installations, no final determination has been made as to where the unaccompanied migrant children would be located.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters that DOD would support the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if requested.

"We have housed refugees, we have housed people thrown out of their homes by earthquakes and hurricanes. We do whatever is in the best interest of the country," Mattis said.

HHS has used facilities on U.S. military bases to house migrants in the past.

In 2014, the department used bases in Texas, Oklahoma, and California to house 7,000 unaccompanied migrant children after HHS facilities reached capacity.

Mattis has already signed a memo allowing up to 4,000 National Guard troops to assist DHS with the security of the U.S./Mexico border. About 2,000 troops, mostly from the National Guards of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, are serving there now -- but as support services to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, not in a law enforcement capacity.

Several governors have pulled their small contingencies of Guard troops from participating in the southern border security mission in protest over the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance policy" on immigration that forcibly separated migrant children from their families.

On Wednesday, President Trump signed an Executive Order, ending the forced separation of children, so that families who cross the border illegally will now be detained together.

Mattis told reporters on Wednesday that the withdrawal of Guard troops was not having an immediate impact on the border security mission.

Trump directs Pentagon to establish "Space Force."

President Trump officially directed the Pentagon to establish a sixth branch of the U.S. military in space on Monday. Speaking at a National Space Council meeting at the White House, Mr. Trump called for a "space force" to ensure American dominance on the high frontier.

The president also signed his administration's third Space Policy Directive, calling for establishment of new protocols and procedures to manage and monitor the increasing numbers of satellites in low-Earth orbit and the tens of thousands of pieces of space junk and debris that pose an increasing threat to costly spacecraft.

The directive follows on the heels of two other major space policy initiatives being implemented by the National Space Council, one calling for returning humans to the moon before eventual missions to Mars and another aimed at streamlining the federal space bureaucracy to reduce red tape and streamline licensing and oversight of commercial space activity.

In remarks that ranged over a variety of unrelated topics, Mr. Trump began by saying current U.S. employment levels were the best "in recorded history" and blaming current immigration problems on the Democrats, saying "we have the worst immigration laws in the entire world" and that ongoing issues could be resolved "very quickly if the Democrats come to the table."

"Everybody wants to do it," he said. "We want to do it more than they do. If they come to the table, instead of playing politics, we can do it very, very quickly."

Turning his attention to space, the president praised the National Space Council and its chairman, Vice President Mike Pence, for its work re-focusing national space policy, saying "for too many years, our dreams of exploration and discovery were really squandered by politics and bureaucracy. And we knocked that out."

"My administration is reclaiming America's heritage as the world's greatest space-faring nation," he went on. "The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers. But our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security."

He said when it comes to defending America, "it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space."

"Very importantly, I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. ... We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal."\

READS MORE HERE