A “staggering number” of migrant children detained at a border patrol facility in South Texas face crowding conditions, with some detained for seven days, lawyers who interviewed them told CBS News on Thursday.
Neha Desai, a lawyer representing young migrants in U.S. government custody, said she interviewed children who said they were hungry, as well as minors who only showered once every seven days.
“Some of the boys said the conditions were so overcrowded that they had to sleep in shifts on the ground,” Desai added, citing interviews with nearly a dozen unaccompanied migrant children at the Women and Border Protection (CBP) facilities. of Donna, Texas.
As of March 2, the Donna complex contained more than 1,800 people, 729% of its pandemic-era capacity, designed for 250 migrants, according to an internal CBP document reviewed by CBS News.
Most of the minors said they had only showered once while in U.S. custody, although they had been detained for more than five days, according to Desai. Some said they had showered twice.
“Everyone said they wanted to shower more and they were told they couldn’t,” Desai said.
US Customs and Border Protection
As attorneys representing migrant children in the federal justice case under the Flores reference agreement, Desai and colleagues at the National Center for Youth Law have the right to interview minors in custody. immigration to the United States.
Desai said she and one of her colleagues were only able to interview some of the hundreds of migrant children detained at the Donna facility, a large shopping complex designed to detain unaccompanied minors and families with children for short periods of time. time. Lawyers said CBP denied them a tour of the facility.
Donna’s facility, which opened last month, has been operating for weeks on its pandemic-era capability, recognized CBP in a recent filing in federal court. The facility contained 854 children on Feb. 21 and nearly 700 two days earlier, according to the court record, which also noted that social distancing “could not be observed at all times given the growing number of individuals detained.”
Among the children interviewed were a young teenager in American custody with her baby and an unaccompanied eight-year-old girl. Some of the children traveling with older siblings were even younger, Desai said.
“There were an amazing amount of very young children,” he said.
Many of the children were visibly emotional, Desai said, mostly siblings of different genders who had been separated and placed in different sections of Donna’s facility. The detained youths, Desai said, also reported that they had no access to outside activities. He said the children told him “how they never saw 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 facility. of CBP.
The minors Desai spoke to also said they had been denied phone calls to communicate with family members. “They were crying hysterically, wanting to talk to their family,” he said.
“We appreciate the extraordinary challenge the government faces in undoing the damage of the previous administration’s immigration policies,” Desai said. “That said, it’s deeply troubling to see young children on the premises for days and days without being able to shower, call their families or see the sunlight.”
The Department of Homeland Security said Border Patrol agents are working to transfer “unaccompanied” quickly and unaccompanied minors to the U.S. refugee agency, which Congress commissioned to house these children.
“Addressing the flow of unaccompanied children crossing our southwestern border is a top priority for this Administration and DHS,” the department said in a statement to CBS News. “It requires a whole coordinated and sustained government response.”
US Customs and Border Protection
During a call with reporters Wednesday, CBP acting commissioner Troy Miller said his agency was “struggling” with the number of migrant families and children in custody. But he said CBP offered children access to medical contractors, wellness checks, blankets, baby formulas, hot meals and showers at least every 48 hours.
“Many of us, maybe most of us, are parents,” Miller said. “I myself have a 6-year-old boy, and these Border Patrol agents go beyond every day to take care of the children.”
In an interview with Univision’s Jorge Ramos, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he saw “too many children” when he visited Donna’s facility earlier this month. But he applauded the Border Patrol agents for their “heroism,” saying the children were well cared for.
“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 of unaccompanied minors entering US custody along the southern border has severely strained the government’s ability to process them, creating significant humanitarian and logistical challenges for the Biden administration.
About 9,500 unaccompanied children were detained at the U.S. border in February, a maximum of 21 months, according to government data.
According to government data obtained by CBS News, more than 7,000 of these minors were transferred to shelters overseen by the Refugee Resettlement Office, which is responsible for housing them until a sponsor, usually a member of, is located. the family in the US.
With nearly 9,000 children currently detained, the refugee agency is struggling to expand its bed, which had been limited by social distancing measures. To accommodate more children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed those restrictions last week, citing “extraordinary circumstances.”
The lack of space for beds and the upward trend of unaccompanied minors entering U.S. custody has led to a blockade of migrant minors at Border Patrol facilities, most built to briefly detain adult men.
Earlier this week, more than 3,200 unaccompanied children were trapped at the border patrol facility, according to CBP documents obtained by CBS News. About 1,400 of the children had been detained for more than 72 hours, the legal limit for border officials is to hand over unaccompanied minors to the refugee office.
Desai said the children he interviewed Thursday echoed a similar sentiment about their time in border patrol custody.
“Several kids said exactly the same phrase,‘ the only time I get up is throw trash or go to the bathroom, ’” he said.