Children line up to enter a tent at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida, in June 2018.

Since the last child left a south Florida facility housing unaccompanied immigrant minors on Aug. 3, the federal government has spent more than $33 million to keep the massive detention center open.



Jonathan Hayes, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency in charge of housing unaccompanied immigrant children, said during congressional testimony Wednesday that the Homestead facility was currently staffed to hold 1,200 children, though there are none housed at the center.

Keeping the facility open costs about $720,000 a day, Hayes said, at a price of approximately $600 per child. If the facility were to be shut down, it would take 90 to 120 days to reactivate it in the event it was suddenly needed, he said.



Since March 2018, more than 14,300 unaccompanied immigrant children have been placed in the Homestead facility, ORR said. After the last child left Homestead, the facility reduced its capacity from 2,700 beds to 1,200.

"Given the extreme uncertainty of referrals coming across our nation's southern border and how many kids we might have to care for, that isn't really a switch that we're ready to turn off at this point," Hayes told a House appropriations subcommittee.

The cost of keeping Homestead running was revealed under questioning from Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, who expressed disbelief at the price tag for what he called "invisible, imaginary, nonexistent human beings."

