More than 20,000 pages of records released through federal litigation indicate that migrant children detained at the now-closed Homestead detention center in South Florida were housed near multiple sources of toxic contamination, including arsenic and lead, without any documented environmental assessment before the facility opened.
The documents, made public after a lawsuit brought by Earthjustice on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee, show the Homestead facility operated next to Homestead Air Reserve Base, a Superfund site, where children as young as six were also exposed to frequent F-16 fighter jet noise and, according to the advocacy groups, instances of sexual abuse.
