Immigration officials create "staging hub" at IAH for immigrant children

U.S. immigration officials said Thursday they created a "staging hub" at George Bush Intercontinental Airport to help speed the transport of unaccompanied children caught at the border to shelters and foster programs located across the United States.

The hub, headquartered in the airport's Terminal D, is essentially a temporary holding room for children who already have been processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the border and are awaiting ICE agents to escort them on connecting flights to facilities run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency responsible for their long-term care.

An ICE official provided no estimate for how many children will pass through the airport daily, saying it "depends based on our operational needs." The children will be in the hub only for a matter of hours, the official said.

The hub marks the government's latest effort to decrease the amount of time unaccompanied children spend in Border Patrol custody. By law, when children from countries other than Mexico are caught at the border, they are supposed to be turned over to ORR within 72 hours.