HOUSTON (AP) – The day after she gave birth in a border hospital in Texas, Nailet and her newborn son were taken by federal agents to a construction site that immigrants often call the ‘fridge’.
Inside, there were large cells with women and their young children. Nailet and her son were housed with 15 other women and found a rug to sleep on, with little room to distance themselves despite the coronavirus pandemic, she said. The lights stayed on all the time. Children constantly sneezed and coughed.
Nailet, who kept her newborn baby warm with a duvet she got in the hospital, told The Associated Press that border agents would not tell her when they would be released. She and her son were detained for six days in a border patrol station. This is twice as long as the federal rules generally allow.
“I had to constantly insist that they bring handkerchiefs and napkins for me,” Nailet, who left Cuba last year, asked to be restrained for fear of retaliation if she was forced to return.
Larger numbers of immigrant families crossed the border between America and Mexico in the first weeks of President Joe Biden’s government. Warning signs appear on the border crises that have marked President Donald Trump’s term: Hundreds of newly released immigrants are sometimes unexpectedly dropped off at nonprofit groups, and bills like Nailet’s long-term detention in short-term facilities are on the rise.
Measures to control the virus sharply reduced the space in holding facilities overwhelmed during a surge of arrivals in 2018 and 2019, when reports emerged of families packed into cells and unaccompanied children having to care for each other .
Most of the border patrols’ stations are not designed to serve children and families or to keep people in the long run. To deal with the new influx, the agency on Tuesday reopened a large tent facility in South Texas to house immigrant families and children.
In a statement last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said some of its facilities had reached a maximum safe holding capacity and mentioned several challenges: COVID-19 protocols, changes in Mexican law and limited space to hold immigrants .
“We will continue to use all current authorities to prevent individuals from being held in a municipal environment for a long time,” the agency said.
Meanwhile, 80% are sustainable facilities for children crossing the border alone – some sent by parents to wait in Mexico. US Health and Human Services, which manages the centers, will reopen a training facility in a former camp for oilfielders 10 weather forecast for Carrizo Springs, Texas. It can accommodate about 700 teens. The training facilities cost an estimated $ 775 per child per day, and Democrats sharply criticized it during the Trump years.
There is no clear driving force for the increase in families and children crossing. Some experts and advocates believe more is trying to cross over illegally now that Biden is president, believing that his government will be allowed more than Trump’s.
Many have waited a year or more under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program that forces asylum seekers to stay south of the border while a judge considers their case. The White House did not add people to the program, but did not say how it would resolve pending cases. It is also refusing to expel unaccompanied children under a pandemic-related public health order issued by Trump.
Others cite the fallout from natural disasters in Central America and unrest in countries such as Haiti.
The US has also stopped sending some immigrant families back to parts of Mexico, especially areas of the state of Tamaulipas across South Texas. The change in practice appears to be uneven, with immigrants being evicted elsewhere, and no clear explanation for the differences.
A law has come into force in Mexico that bans children in migrant detention centers. But Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement that agreements with the US during the pandemic “remain on the same terms.” According to the statement, it is normal for local adjustments to take place, but this does not mean that the practice has changed or stopped. ‘
Some pregnant mothers, such as Nailet, who was denied access to the American cross again during labor. Their children become U.S. citizens by birthright. The Border Patrol usually releases families in the country, although reports have surfaced of immigrant parents and children born in America.
In the case of Nailet, CBP said an unforeseen increase in the number of families crossing the border near Del Rio, about 241 kilometers west of San Antonio, led to her prolonged detention.
Lawyers say officials should have released Nailet quickly, as well as other families with young children, and should speed up processing to avoid delays. Authorities have long resisted what they call “capture and release”, which they say inspires more immigrants to try to enter the country illegally, often through smugglers linked to transnational gangs.
Nailet is still in pain at birth and nursed her newborn baby in the cold cell. When she told border agents that the hospital would return on February 1, she said they refused to take her.
CBP says Nailet and her son took a health test on Wednesday night.
She was released Thursday and taken to a hotel with the help of a nonprofit group, the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, which is one of several organizations receiving larger numbers of immigrant families after leaving government oversight.
Dr. Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist and executive director of the immigration group All Last One, described how border guards can traumatize a newborn: the cold, the constant light, the tension that emanates from their nursing mother.
“This is a very vulnerable time,” she said. ‘He consumes the tension she’s experiencing. This is his first exposure to the world outside the womb. It is extremely cruel and dangerous. ”
A previous increase in illegal border crossings, coupled with delays in processing families, has led to dire conditions at several border stations in 2019, with a shortage of food and water, and children recovering in many cases.
The previous year, when the Trump administration separated thousands of immigrant families under the zero tolerance policy, many people were detained in a converted warehouse in South Texas. Thousands of children taken from their parents are under government supervision, including training facilities in Tornillo, Texas and Homestead, Florida.
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Associated Press journalists Christopher Sherman and María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.