美国国家公共电台 NPR Military Asked To Provide 20,000 Beds For Detained Immigrant Children

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

All right, now where families may be housed will depend a lot on what the Pentagon can do. The U.S. military has been asked to provide facilities for migrants. NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman has been trying to get some details on how this might work. He's here with me now. Hey, Tom.

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE¹: Hello there.

KELLY: How many beds are we talking?

BOWMAN: The Department of Health and Human Services has asked for up to 20,000 temporary beds from the Pentagon, and the Pentagon's looking at it right now. So - and they've been asked to provide these beds between July and the end of the year. So July's coming pretty fast, so...

KELLY: Coming up in a few weeks, yeah.

BOWMAN: Right.

KELLY: Do we know which military bases we're talking? This would be on existing military bases near the border.

BOWMAN: That's right. I'm told they're looking at the Army's Fort Bliss² in Texas as well as Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas. Those are the two places. But I'm told you could have a couple more as well because that number 20,000 is pretty big...

KELLY: Right.

BOWMAN: ...Finding space for them.

KELLY: Right, and in flux³. And we're talking families, just children - do we know?

BOWMAN: This would be - HHS is asking for up to 20,000 beds for unaccompanied children.

KELLY: OK.

BOWMAN: But you're right. As far as where the families would go, would that be part of this as well? Would Department of, you know, Homeland Security be asking for additional bed space for families? At this point we don't know. It's only HHS at this point.

KELLY: So are we talking barracks? I mean, we're talking 20,000 additional beds on these bases.

BOWMAN: That's right. I asked one Army officer, senior Army officer. I said, well, do you have barrack space...

KELLY: Right.

BOWMAN: ...At Fort Bliss to put all these folks in? And he said probably not. So you'd have to likely create some sort of a tent city at some point. And - but we don't have an answer to that yet.

KELLY: Another question is - we're talking unaccompanied children, thousands of unaccompanied children. What kind of facilities might be there in terms of playgrounds, facilities catering⁴ specifically to kids?

BOWMAN: Yeah. We don't have an answer to that either. During the Obama administration, they did house thousands of children for a short time at some of these very military bases, so I'm not sure exactly the facilities they created. Did the Army have a playground there or stuffed animals for these kids? We really don't have any detail right yet about what these facilities would look like.

KELLY: Has anything ever been done like this before?

BOWMAN: Well, again, during the Obama administration they did it for a short period of time. But again, it's difficult because you have to build this location. They would have to bring in maybe trailers for showers and also bathroom facilities. So...

KELLY: And I guess in terms of this scale, the numbers.

BOWMAN: Right. The numbers are very, very large of course.

KELLY: So does the military say it's ready to do this? Are they on board?

BOWMAN: Defense⁵ Secretary Jim Mattis said, we will see what we can do here. And again, it's - they're asking - HHS is asking the Pentagon, you know, can you fulfill⁶ this? I mean, how many beds can you provide? So we don't have an answer yet from the Pentagon - oh, we can provide 20,000. They may say we can provide half of that or three-quarters of that. At this point we really don't know. But what we do know is these two bases, Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base, are some of the ones we expect to have these temporary beds for undocumented children.

KELLY: Seems to speak to the ongoing⁷ scramble⁸ to try to figure out how to respond to the president's executive order and the ongoing flux in immigration policy and what exactly...

BOWMAN: That's absolutely right.

KELLY: ...Is happening at the border. NPR's Tom Bowman, thank you.

BOWMAN: You're welcome.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 bliss   

n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福

参考例句：

• It's sheer bliss to be able to spend the day in bed.整天都可以躺在床上真是幸福。
• He's in bliss that he's won the Nobel Prize.他非常高兴，因为获得了诺贝尔奖金。

3 flux   

n.流动；不断的改变

参考例句：

• The market is in a constant state of flux.市场行情在不断变化。
• In most reactors,there is a significant flux of fast neutrons.在大部分反应堆中都有一定强度的快中子流。

4 catering   

n. 给养

参考例句：

• Most of our work now involves catering for weddings. 我们现在的工作多半是承办婚宴。
• Who did the catering for your son's wedding? 你儿子的婚宴是由谁承办的？

5 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

6 fulfill   

vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意

参考例句：

• If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了，你就要履行你的诺言。
• This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。

7 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

8 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。