The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would not renew the contract of a private prison company operating a Florida detention center for migrant children that drew widespread protests last year over Trump administration policies.
Agency officials told Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., that the contract for Caliburn International Inc. would not be renewed after it expires on Nov. 30.
The company operates a migrant detention center in Homestead, Fla., the Miami Herald reports, and HHS sent Mucarsel-Powell notice of its decision on Friday.
However, Caliburn's contract would be placed into "warm status," which means HHS would retain access to the center and could re-open it at a later date.
The remaining Homestead staffers will be released within seven days, the Herald reports, and the center's bed capacity will be reduced to zero, according to the email.
"In our ongoing efforts to ensure fiscal prudence, following a sustained decrease in referrals, HHS operations at the Homestead Temporary Influx facility will be transitioned into warm status effective immediately," HHS said in its email to Muarsel-Powell.
The center, which had as many as 1,200 beds, is located in her congressional district.
Caliburn is believed to be the nation's only remaining for-profit child-detention center for migrants. It was vacated in August after many protests by immigration activists — and Friday's HHS decision effectively closed the center.
Mucarsel-Powell, who was in her first term, hailed the decision Monday.
"The pressure that Congress and I — and our Homestead community — put on the administration worked," she told the Herald in a statement. "Caliburn will no longer receive millions of dollars to operate an empty facility.
"The taxpayer should never have been footing the bill for the result of inhumane immigration policies."
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