Federal child-welfare officials under President Joe Biden put a major shelter contractor on a compressed clock in August 2021, demanding fast answers on how to jam more unaccompanied migrant children into a Pomona, California, facility already straining under the border surge.
Daily Caller News Foundation reporting on records obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America shows an Administration for Children and Families official opening that exchange on Aug. 5, 2021, with a high-importance request for expansion and COVID quarantine details.
The emails capture a government machine racing capacity while rules and timelines slipped. They also sit beside later inspector general findings on weak COVID controls at emergency sites, including Pomona, and an ACF admission that thousands of minors released in that era remain unaccounted for.
ACF is the Health and Human Services division that oversees care for unaccompanied children through the Office of Refugee Resettlement. On Aug. 5, an ACF official asked Cherokee Federal how quickly it could add bunk beds and other structures at Pomona and how much COVID quarantine space remained.
One line cut straight to the pressure point.
"[W]hen do you estimate you’ll run out of COVID space?"
ACF framed the ask as planning for a potential capacity increase and for Cherokee Nation Management & Consulting’s COVID processes. The same message carried a response deadline of “Friday, July 5 2021,” a date already in the past when the email went out.
CASA Director James Fitzpatrick told the Daily Caller News Foundation the July date was “likely a typographical error, adding to the chaos and confusion of this exchange.” He said the full thread, including later extension requests, pointed to an immediate next-day reply demand.
Cherokee Federal answered the same day. It said it was still confirming pricing for beds, structures, and “the needs to increase the COVID numbers,” and it asked for more time, seeking an extension until 6:00 pm PST Monday, August 9, 2021.
By Aug. 6, the temperature rose again. The ACF official wrote that the agency could not reach the company’s contracts manager by phone and that “the ACF Secretary is requesting a meeting today to discuss the increased capacity needs at the Pomona site.” The official set an “urgent meeting at 3pm Eastern Time today.” Cherokee Federal confirmed it was “good for a call at 3:00 pm EST today.”
On Aug. 9, the contractor asked to push the deadline to Aug. 11, saying it was “still waiting on a few responses.” ACF refused the full extension.
The official wrote that “Due to the tight deadline and the urgency of this request, we are not able to grant an extension until Wednesday, August 11th,” then added that the agency could grant time only “until close of until [sic] 3pm Eastern Time.” A same-day follow-up confirmed that narrower window.
Cherokee Federal sent its cost estimate on Aug. 10. On Aug. 13, ACF sought further clarification by 12 pm Eastern Time. The contractor replied that “unfortunately we will be late in our response.” Public records described in the reporting do not show whether the expansion dollars or bed counts were finally approved.
Federal spending records show Cherokee Federal was running the Pomona site under a $706.9 million government contract as of April 2021. Local reporting cited in the package said the facility held up to 2,500 children at a time and took in about 10,000 before it closed in November 2021.
That scale matched the wider crush inside ORR. ACF’s Office of Communications told the Daily Caller News Foundation that at the height of the Biden administration border crisis, 22,000 unaccompanied alien children were in ORR care.
Fitzpatrick cast the email traffic as evidence of a system built too late and run too hard.
"The Biden HHS was woefully unprepared for the unaccompanied migrant children crisis that they created,"
He added that officials “were desperately reaching out to contractors in August 2021 for help to house the influx of children and expected answers back almost immediately.” In his view, “This type of behavior and pressure on contractors may have contributed to the unprecedented number of missing unaccompanied minors that occurred during the Biden years.”
A June 2022 HHS Office of Inspector General audit later examined emergency sites stood up in the surge, including Pomona. The audit found that “ORR contracted with several organizations that had little or no experience providing shelter and services to children, and the contracts did not contain adequate details about COVID-19 protocols.”
OIG visited 11 sites. Eight did not trace contacts of children or staff who tested positive for COVID. Most of the emergency sites inspected, Pomona among them, did not follow federal COVID testing guidance, the audit said, partly because the government was expanding capacity so quickly. OIG also concluded ORR had handled surges before and “should have been better prepared.”
Investigators have not publicly detailed in these materials how many Pomona children were directly affected by the testing and contact-tracing gaps, or which precise testing steps failed beyond the contact-tracing breakdowns already noted.
ACF, now speaking under the Trump administration, tied the 2021 crush to what followed after shelter walls. The Office of Communications said the children in ORR care “were then rapidly released to poorly vetted sponsors.”
ACF said ORR now cares for about 1,725 children. In the last year and a half, it said, ORR has located 157,000 children the Biden administration released to sponsors. Some were “found and rescued from trafficking situations and abuse.” ACF also said “ORR continues to search for thousands of missing minors to confirm their safety.” The exact remaining total was not given.
Cherokee Federal did not answer the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment on the 2021 exchange. In an Aug. 13, 2024, statement reported by the Cherokee Phoenix, CEO Steven Bilby said the company stood by its Pomona work.
"We are proud of our work in Pomona, where we followed regulations and flagged every potential safety issue to the government so it could be reviewed and quickly addressed,"
The name of the ACF official who drove the August emails is not identified in the released material. Authorities have not publicly confirmed in these records what capacity, if any, was added after the cost estimate landed. Those gaps leave the paper trail clearest on pace and pressure, not on the final bed count.
The documents fix a short timeline in plain view. A high-importance capacity and COVID-space demand on Aug. 5. A same-week secretary-level meeting request. Extension requests trimmed to hours. A cost estimate on Aug. 10. A late reply on Aug. 13. Facility closure by November. OIG findings the following June on inexperience, thin COVID contract language, and failed contact tracing at most inspected emergency sites.
ACF’s own newer figures fix another sequence: peak shelter loads measured in the tens of thousands, rapid release to sponsors later called poorly vetted, then a multi-year hunt to locate children and confirm safety. Fitzpatrick links the contractor pressure to that larger accountability failure. The emails do not themselves prove where any single child went. They do show how hard and how fast Washington pushed for space while the surge was already inside the wire.
When government expands first and accounts later, children become inventory under deadline, and the public is left counting the missing after the contracts cool.
