As images of immigrant children held at shelters made their way across news publications and social media posts, a lingering question loomed large: Where are the girls?
"Of the 11,786 minors currently in the unaccompanied alien children program, 3,280 of them are female," Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for Health and Human Services (HHS), stated in an email to el Nuevo Herald Tuesday evening.
Wolfe also confirmed that 391 teenage girls are being held at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children, where three Florida lawmakers — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and state Rep. Kionne McGhee — were denied entry earlier Tuesday. The other 801 minors housed at the shelter are teenage boys, bringing the total number of minors at the Homestead facility to 1,192, Wolfe noted.
Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.
