A 528-bed holding facility for migrant families and unaccompanied children is under construction at England Airpark, a former military base in Alexandria. Ralph Hennessy, the executive director of the England Airpark Authority, says the people that will stay at this ICE facility are individuals volunteering to go back home and those who are going back as a family unit.
“It’s going to keep the family unit together as opposed to them being split up, parceled out and sent back in other ways,” Hennessy said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is calling the Alexandria facility a staging area, not a detention center. Hennessy says migrants awaiting deportation on a chartered flight will only be there a few days.
“Long enough to be processed and coordinated with their home country on being able to receive them; so envision they’re here three to four days,” Hennessy noted.
Several immigration advocates have raised the possibility that children could be at the Alexandria facility for weeks or months. The nonprofit group Children’s Rights says it’s an expansion of the deportation system in ways we have not seen before.
Hennessy says the LaSalle Family Foundation will run the facility. He says for the England Airpark Authority, one of its missions is to use the England Air Force Base in producing economic development.
“There’s about 200 jobs created, and then there’s a nice rent check that they’re going to pay us; a little over $500,000 a year,” Hennessy explained.