Tornillo will now shut down after the new year, Weber said, but he did not give an exact date or more precise time frame for when it might close for good.



The agency is working with its network of shelters including Tornillo to release the children "to suitable sponsors as safely and quickly as possible," he said.



Tornillo came under fire last month after revelations that the Trump administration had waived FBI fingerprint checks for the 2,100 staff working there and allowed the private contractor running the facility to have just one mental health clinician for every 100 children. In November, Health and Human Services officials said they hoped the fingerprints would be completed in a month but they haven't given an update.



Lawmakers called for stricter background checks, more mental health support and a public hearing to further investigate problems at Tornillo raised by a federal watchdog report and an Associated Press investigation.



The federal program originally intended to offer a safe haven to vulnerable children fleeing danger across the globe has expanded considerably over the last two years. Three months after President Donald Trump took office there were 2,720 migrant youth in government care. Today, the system has 16,000 beds available for migrant children.



Confidential government data obtained and cross-checked by AP has shown that as the year draws to a close, about 9,800 detained migrant children are in facilities holding 100-plus total kids, including Tornillo and Homestead.



The American Academy of Pediatrics and many experts warn against institutionalizing children in large groups, saying the experience of treating the young migrants like cogs in a big machine can have severe psychological consequences and cause lifelong trauma.



Weber has said that sheltering children in large facilities, while not preferable, is a better alternative than holding them for long periods at Border Patrol stations ill-suited to care for them.



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