Immigration and Customs Enforcement is set to open a national call center with a dedicated unit to track unaccompanied migrant children, part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to crack down on migrants who entered the country illegally as minors.
Last February, the Trump administration directed immigration agents to target migrant children who entered the United States illegally without a parent or legal guardian. According to government data, more than 600,000 children have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone since 2019.
The new national call center, which will be located in Nashville, Tennessee, will use data from local and state law enforcement to inform federal authorities about the whereabouts of unaccompanied children, according to a document posted on a government contracting website earlier this week.
The document did not specify why Nashville was selected as the location of the call center, but NBC News notes that CoreCivic, one of ICE’s main contractors operating immigrant detention centers, is headquartered in the city.
The Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and CoreCivic did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, which provides legal services to unaccompanied migrant children, criticized the plans in a statement to ABC News.
“There are a host of federal laws and programs that purport to protect unaccompanied children, which this administration has been actively attempting to dismantle,” Lukens said.
“The center will not protect children. It will only serve to make it easier to deport them,” he added.
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