U.S. Setting Up Emergency Shelter in Texas as Youths Cross Border Alone

"With border authorities in South Texas overwhelmed by a surge of young [unauthorized*] migrants traveling by themselves, the Department of Homeland Security declared a crisis this week and moved to set up an emergency shelter for the youths at an Air Force base in San Antonio, officials said Friday.  After seeing children packed in a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Tex., during a visit last Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Monday declared “a level-four condition of readiness” in the Rio Grande Valley.  The alert was an official recognition that federal agencies overseeing borders, immigration enforcement and child welfare had been outstripped by a sudden increase in unaccompanied minors in recent weeks.  On Sunday, Department of Health and Human Services officials will open a shelter for up to 1,000 minors at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, authorities said, and will begin transferring youths there by land and air." - NYT, May 17, 2014.

* The Times article used the word 'illegal,' but the Times does not and cannot know the immigration status of the migrants, and should not use the adjective most media outlets now reject.  For more on the failure of the Times to drop the I-Word, see this link.