First stop for migrant kids: For-profit detention centre

General view of the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children, which is the Trump administration's largest shelter for migrant children, in Homestead, Florida, U.S, February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

HOMESTEAD, Fla., SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Reuters) - For a growing number of migrant children, this is their first home in America: a sprawling campus dotted with beige buildings, massive white tents and metal trailers, next door to a U.S. Air Force base.

The federal government is holding nearly 1,600 migrant children here, at what it calls a “temporary influx” shelter. It has added 250 beds in the last two months and could soon house 2,350 children who crossed the nation’s southern border on their own.