The biden administration is holding tens of thousands of asylum seeking children in an opaque network of some two hundred facilities that the associated press has learned spans two dozen states and includes five shelters with more than a thousand children packed inside confidential data obtained by the ap shows the number of migrant children in government custody more than doubled in the past two months and this week the federal government was housing around twenty one thousand children from toddlers to teens a facility at fort bliss. A us army post in el paso. Texas has more than four and a half thousand children as of monday. Attorneys advocates mental experts. Say that while some shelters are safe and provide adequate care. Others are endangering children's health and safety a us department of health and human services spokesman mark webber said the department stuff and contractors a working hard to keep children in the custody safe and healthy part of the government's plan to manage thousands of children crossing the us mexico. Border involves about a dozen unlicensed emergency facilities inside military installations stadiums and convention centers that skirts states regulations and don't require traditional legal oversight inside the facilities cold emergency in sites children on guaranteed access to education recreational opportunities or legal counsel