Huge migrant teen detention camp in Texas shutting down

TORNILLO, Texas (AP) — The nonprofit running what once was the largest U.S. detention camp housing migrant teenagers said the last children left the facility Friday.

The tent city in Tornillo, Texas, is shutting down, and all tents and equipment will be removed from the site by the end of January, said Krista Piferrer, spokeswoman of BCFS Health and Human Services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the care of migrant children, did not provide further details. But a spokesman said last month that the center had stopped receiving new referrals.

The Tornillo facility with capacity for 360 children opened in June in an isolated pocket of the Texas desert.