Three members of Congress from Florida are calling for an investigation into a no-bid, $341 million contract recently awarded to the company that runs the Homestead detention center for migrant children.
The award came as Gen. John Kelly, President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, was joining the advisory board of the operator’s parent company. Kelly advocated and helped carry out the president’s policy of separating children from parents upon their arrival at the border. In light of that, Kelly should not be helping oversee a company that profits from the same policy, critics have said.
Although the Homestead center is primarily for unaccompanied minors, children separated from their parents have also been detained there.
In a letter Monday to the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Reps. Donna Shalala, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell demanded that the IG look into how the contract was awarded and explain the role of Kelly, if any, in engineering the deal.
Read more at our news partner,the Miami Herald.