New numbers show Tornillo facility housing around 1,500 unaccompanied immigrant children

The number of children being held at the temporary shelter for unaccompanied children has more than tripled since August.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a fact sheet Friday that states the Tornillo facility is now sheltering approximately 1,500 unaccompanied, undocumented teens ages 13 to 17 years old. ABC-7 archives state that fewer than 400 teens were being housed at the facility in August.

ABC-7 has obtained exclusive aerial photos of the facility, shown below.

For an explanation of what the buildings in the photos are for, watch ABC-7 at 5 and 6.

HHS says that in late September just over 1,600 teens were being housed and that number is on a slow decline.

About 80 percent are boys and 20 percent are girls. HHS said that teens spend an average of 25 days at the shelter and most are released to a suitable sponsor. About 85 percent of the sponsors are family members in the United States waiting immigration hearings.

HHS says that the need for more space at the facility has nothing to do with the Zero Tolerance policy that ended on June 20, 2018. None of the undocumented teens at the facility were part of family separations.

There are a total of 3,800 beds in the facility, but 1,400 beds are on reserve in case hurricane shelters in the southeast are overwhelmed.

The view the full fact sheet released by HHS, click here.