The photos by rep. Taken by Henry Cuellar, offers a rare look at conditions in CBP facilities for children without immigrants.
Photographs of a U.S. tent and border protection tent plant in Donna, Texas, show the crowded conditions where underage immigrants are being held at a time when the Biden government is struggling to find shelter for the growing number of children crossing the border.
The photos, taken by Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, provide a rare glimpse into the conditions in such border patrol facilities, which currently house more than 5,000 unaccompanied immigrant children. Axios first reported on the images Cuellar took.
The problems with overcrowding are due to the increasing number of unaccompanied children arriving at the border and the CBP’s inability to transfer it to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which does not have enough space. HHS houses more than 9,500 children in its shelter or emergency care facilities.
DHS did not give the media or lawyers, who are able to visit these facilities as part of a court decision, the opportunity to visit these facilities.
Lawyers conducting an interview with some children at the Donna tent facility told BuzzFeed News that minors are being held in overcrowded areas for eight days without showers or the ability to call their families.
All the children questioned by lawyers were under the supervision of the border enforcement agency for at least five days, during the three-day limit they may have under the law.
CBP did not respond to a request for comment immediately.
“I have repeatedly said from the outset that a border patrol station is no place for a child, and therefore we work 24 hours to move the children out of the border patrol facilities, under the care and supervision of the department of “Health and human services are hiding them,” Home Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN on Sunday.
In 2019, visits to border patrol facilities revealed that children were being held in dirty, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions. Lawyers visiting a border patrol station in Clint, Texas, describe children caring for babies and toddlers, a lack of access to soap and toothbrushes and inadequate food, water and sanitation.
In a call with reporters last week, senior Biden officials said the HHS was rushing to open a shelter, but noted that it would take months and was not a solution to the current situation.
Instead, the agency turned to emergency shelters, such as a conference center in Dallas and another facility in Pecos, Texas, to try to move children out of CBP supervision more quickly.
In February, U.S. border authorities encountered more than 9,400 unaccompanied children among immigrants.
The Trump administration has begun the practice of deporting unaccompanied minor minors found at the border by U.S. border authorities, citing a public health code called Title 42. The government was blocked by a federal judge in November over the to continue practice. An appeals court overturned the judge’s order in late January, but by that time a new administration had taken office and the Biden White House had decided not to continue the practice of evicting unaccompanied immigrant children.
However, the Biden government has continued to expel immigrant families and adults who have encountered border officials at the border, citing the same health code as the Trump White House.
Before the judge forced the Trump administration to allow unaccompanied children asylum in the US, the government quickly sent these children back to dangerous Mexican border towns or flew back to conditions to which they had fled.