A staggering number of migrant children detained at a South Texas Border Patrol facility are overloaded with conditions, some of which are being held for up to seven days, lawyers interviewed Thursday told CBS News.
Neha Desai, a lawyer who keeps young teens in the U.S. government, said she interviewed children who said they were hungry, as well as minors who showered only once in seven days.
“Some of the boys said the conditions were so crowded that they had to take turns sleeping on the floor,” Desai added, referring to interviews with nearly a dozen unaccompanied migrant children living in the Customs and Border (CBP) facility. held in Donna is Texas.
On March 2, the Donna complex occupied more than 1,800 people – 729% of the capacity of the pandemic era, designed for 250 migrants, according to an internal CBP document reviewed by CBS News.
Most minors said they had only been dumped in U.S. custody once, even though they had been detained for more than five days, according to Desai. Some have said they have showered twice already.
“They all said they wanted to shower more and they said they could not,” Desai said.
US Customs and Border Protection
As attorneys representing migrant children in the federal court case over the distinctive Flores Settlement Agreement, Desai and her colleagues at the National Center for Youth Law are entitled to interview minors in U.S. immigration custody.
Desai said she and one of her colleagues could only interview the hundreds of migrating children detained at the Donna plant, a large tent complex designed to hold minors and families with children for short periods of time. The lawyers said CBP refused them a tour of the facility.
The Donna facility, which opened last month, has been working for weeks on its capacity in the pandemic era, CBP admitted in a recent submission to federal court. According to the court collection, 854 children were held on 21 February and almost 700 two days earlier, who also noted that social distance ‘could not be observed at all times, given the increasing number of individuals in detention.’
The children interviewed included a young American in U.S. custody with her baby and an 8-year-old unaccompanied girl. Some of the children who traveled with older siblings were even younger, Desai said.
“There were an incredible amount of very young children,” she said.
According to Desai, many of the children were very emotional, especially siblings of different genders who were separated and placed in different parts of the Donna facility. Desai said the young detainees also did not have access to outside activities. She said the children told her how they had never seen the sun.
“One of them said he could only see the sun when he was showering because you can see the sun through the window,” Desai said, noting that the children raised this issue during their interviews outside the CBP plant.
The minors Desai spoke to also said they had been denied phone calls to communicate with family members. “They cried hysterically and wanted to talk to their family,” she said.
“We appreciate the extraordinary challenge facing the government in undoing the damage of the previous administration’s immigration policies,” Desai said. “However, it is very worrying to see young children in facilities for days on end, unable to shower, call their families or see the sunlight.”
The Department of Homeland Security said border patrol agents were working to “quickly and efficiently” transfer minor minors to the U.S. Refugee Agency, which charged Congress with housing these children.
“Addressing the stream of unaccompanied children crossing our southwestern border is a major priority of this administration and DHS,” the department said in a statement to CBS News. “It requires an entire government’s coordinated and sustained response.”
US Customs and Border Protection
During a call with reporters on Wednesday, acting CBP commissioner Troy Miller said his agency was ‘struggling’ with the number of migrating families and children under its supervision. But he said CBP provides access to medical contractors, welfare examinations, blankets, baby formula, hot meals and showers at least every 48 hours.
“A lot of us, maybe most of us, are parents,” Miller said. “I have a 6-year-old myself, and these border patrol agents go above and beyond every day to care for the children.”
In an interview with Univision’s Jorge Ramos, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he saw ‘too many children’ when he visited the Donna plant earlier this month. But he applauded the border patrol agents for their ‘heroism’ and said the children were well taken care of.
“There are no children in cages in the United States,” Mayorkas said according to a transcript of the interview.
A sharp increase in the number unaccompanied minors entering US supervision along the southern border, the government’s ability to process it was severely hampered, posing significant humanitarian and logistical challenges for the Biden government.
Nearly 9,500 unaccompanied children were taken into the U.S. Border Guard in February – a 21-month high, according to government data.
According to government figures obtained by CBS News, more than 7,000 of these minors were transferred to shelters after which the Office of Refugees relocates, which is responsible for housing them until a sponsor, usually a family member in the US, is located. is.
With nearly 9,000 children currently in detention, the refugee agency is trying to expand its space, which is limited by social distance measures. To accommodate more children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed the restrictions last week, citing ‘extraordinary circumstances’.
The lack of sleeping space and the upward trend of minor minors entering U.S. custody has led to an ambush of migrant minors in Border Patrol facilities, most of which are built to hold adult men briefly.
Earlier this week, more than 3,200 unaccompanied children were trapped in Border Patrol facilities, according to the CBP documents obtained by CBS News. Nearly 1,400 of the children were detained for more than 72 hours. The legal limit on border guards is to hand over unaccompanied minors to the refugee office.
Desai said the children she interviewed Thursday reflected one similar sentiment about their time in border patrol custody.
“Several children said exactly the same thing: ‘The only time I get up is to throw rubbish or go to the bathroom,'” she said.