The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the upcoming opening of a new migrant processing facility in Otay Mesa, California, which includes one of the largest immigration detention centers in the state.
The primary purpose of the temporary facility is to “safely and expeditiously” process people in Border Patrol custody, CBP said in a statement, without specifying when the new location will begin operating.
The new facility, which will have the capacity to process 500 newly arrived migrants daily, will expand processing capacity for the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol, which has been overwhelmed by the increase in the number of arrivals.
The facility is weatherproof, climate controlled and is expected to provide ample areas for eating, sleeping and personal hygiene.
The design of the new facility is similar to other soft-walled (tent) facilities recently built on the US-Mexico border.
The third week of January, CBP opened a temporary processing center in El Paso, Texas, with the capacity to house 1,000 people.
The construction of these centers is part of the strategy announced last month by the Government of President Joe Biden to address the increase in the numbers of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, which included a plan to grant humanitarian visas to migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.
The plan bars migrants from those four countries from entering the country’s southern border illegally and exposes them to deportation.
With information from EFE
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