DC Mayor Rejects Plan for Migrant Children Facility in the Capital

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser in 2014Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Scrambling for additional space to house migrant children, the Trump administration awarded a contract to a company that planned to open a facility in the administration’s own backyard of Washington, DC. But on Tuesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that she would not allow the center to open in the staunchly Democratic city.
“We have no intention of accepting a new federal facility,” Bowser said in a statement Tuesday in response to an inquiry from Mother Jones, “least of all one that detains and dehumanizes migrant children.”
The detention center would have housed unaccompanied migrant children from ages 12 to 17 and been run by Dynamic Service Solutions, a company based in nearby National Harbor, Maryland, that has no record of experience running facilities for children. 
In 2017, Dynamic Service Solutions was awarded an $8.7 million contract by the US Department of Health and Human Services to shelter and care for unaccompanied minors in the United States. The company recently posted job openings in Washington for bilingual youth care workers and teachers. One posting, for a “lead teacher” position, stipulates that the teacher will have to meet the Office of Refugee Resettlement guidelines, which dictate that unaccompanied minors must receive “a minimum of six hours of structured education.”
But the DC government, which has consistently opposed Trump administration policies, would have none of it. “Washington D.C. will not be complicit in the inhumane practice of detaining migrant children in Warehouses,” Bowser stated.
Washington, DC, has several options to prevent the center from opening, including passing legislation to ban the facility and using regulatory restrictions.
Asked about plans to open a shelter in Washington, Dynamic Service Solutions referred Mother Jones to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has nine employees listed on LinkedIn. According to its website, the company has worked with the US Army Corps of Engineers to train US soldiers and Iraqis on electrical safety and provided engineers and technicians to other federal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.