HOUSTON (AP) – Hundreds of immigrant children and teenagers were detained in a crowded Border Patrol tent, some sleeping on the floor because there are not enough mats, according to non-profit lawyers who oversee immigration detention centers.
Lawyers interviewed more than a dozen children on Thursday in Donna, Texas, where the Border Patrol maintains more than 1,000 people. Some of the youths told lawyers that they had been at the establishment for a week or more, despite the agency’s three-day limit on child detention. Many said they were not allowed to call their parents or other relatives who may be wondering where they are.
Despite concerns about the coronavirus, children are kept so close together that they can touch the person next to them, lawyers said. Some need to wait five days or more to bathe, and soap is not always available, only shampoo, according to lawyers.
President Joe Biden’s administration denied lawyers access to the tent facilities. During the administration of former President Donald Trump, visits by lawyers to the Border Patrol posts revealed serious problems, including dozens of children kept in a rural station without adequate food, water or soap.
“It is quite surprising that the government talks about the importance of transparency and does not allow children’s lawyers to see where they are staying,” said Leecia Welch of the National Center for Youth Law, one of the lawyers. “I find that very disappointing.”
Although none of the children reported situations as serious as during the Trump era, Welch said that lawyers “haven’t been able to lay eyes on anything to see for ourselves, so we’re just putting the pieces of what they said together.”
A 1997 court settlement known as the Flores Agreement sets standards for government detention of immigrant children. According to Flores, lawyers have the right to supervise the detention of children. The Justice Department declined to comment on Thursday because lawyers were denied access. The Biden administration has not responded to several requests from The Associated Press seeking access to the tent.
Government figures show a growing crisis as hundreds of children cross the border daily and are taken into custody. The Border Patrol currently has a record of more than 3,000 children in detention, according to government data obtained by the AP. That number is increasing almost daily.
More children are waiting for more time in custody of the Border Patrol because the long-term facilities operated by the US Human and Health Services are almost out of capacity. Hundreds of children are being apprehended daily at much higher rates than HHS is releasing them to parents or sponsors. Currently, HHS takes an average of 37 days to release a child.
Biden interrupted the Trump era’s practice of expelling immigrant children who cross the border on their own, but continued the expulsions of immigrant families and single adults. Although his government tried to prevent immigrants from entering the United States, many believe they have a better chance now. There are also growing reports of parents sending their children across the border alone while in Mexico or Central America.
Most border patrol stations are designed for short-term detention of adults, with cold, concrete cells with lights always on. The Donna tent has partitions and transparent sleeping mats, according to images released by the government.
Six children died after being detained by border agents during the Trump administration. One died of influenza at the Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas, where minors are being held.
HHS told its contractors to lift capacity restrictions enacted during the pandemic and to speed up releases by paying for children’s airfare instead of charging sponsors.
But experts and lawyers who work with children say the government can do more.
Although the majority of young people detained by the government are teenagers, both Border Patrol and HHS are detaining very young children who, in some cases, were separated from adult guardians.
The Associated Press this week interviewed the mother of a 4-year-old girl from Guatemala who crossed the border on March 5 with her aunt. The border authorities expelled her aunt and labeled the unaccompanied girl from her parents, placing her in the Donna tent.
The girl’s parents live in Maryland. Her mother told the AP that she did not know her daughter’s whereabouts until Sunday and did not speak to her until Monday. According to the mother, the girl was unable to speak in almost 20 minutes of phone call. AP is not identifying the girl or her mother to protect the child’s privacy.
“She cried like something was going on, like she was scared,” said the mother this week. “I started to cry when I heard her like this. It didn’t seem right to me. “
The parents asked that their daughter be released directly to them, but on Monday she was sent from southern Texas to an orphanage in Michigan.
When she spoke to her mother on Tuesday morning, the girl was no longer crying, but she still couldn’t speak.
“She didn’t say anything,” she said. “I tried everything I could, but nothing.”
Both Homeland Security and HHS initially said they would not be able to deliver the child directly to their mother. But after the family’s lawyers threatened to sue and after AP investigations, the government notified the girl’s mother on Wednesday that she would expedite her release.
Amy Maldonado, a family lawyer, noted that often complicated government processes and inadequate spaces for keeping children at the border predate the Biden government.
“I don’t hold them accountable for the whole story,” she said. “But that child could have been handed over to her mother, and that is in this government.”
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Associated Press journalist Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.