The growing number of unaccompanied children on the border is adding more stress to the system and has overburdened resources, which had already been depleted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest update comes as the Biden government runs to devise solutions to resolve the evolving situation on the U.S.-Mexico border – which the government is not calling a crisis – including increasing the capacity to house unaccompanied children and speeding up the process that would allow get out of government care more quickly.
There are more than 600 children in custody for more than 10 days, the documents show. Federal law requires unaccompanied children to be delivered within 72 hours to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees a network of shelters designed to shelter minors, but amid restrictions related to the pandemic, children remain in custody for more than 72 years. . hours limit.
On average, children are in custody of the Border Patrol in prison-like facilities for an average of more than five days.
In this environment, children alternate schedules to create space for each other in confined facilities, some children have not seen sunlight for days and others take turns bathing, often spending days without showering, according to case managers, lawyers and border patrol agents.
Bunk beds were taken to one of the processing facilities to help accommodate the flow of children. “Some of them are up to three bunks high,” an agent told CNN, adding that children also sleep on plastic beds and mats on the floor and on the benches.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas led a bipartisan Senate delegation to El Paso, Texas, on Friday to see what is going on there. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted about overcrowding conditions.
“I just left the border processing facility. Hundreds of children huddled in large open rooms. In one corner, I fought back tears as a 13-year-old girl sobbed uncontrollably explaining through a translator how terrified she was of being separated from others. your grandmother and without her parents, “he said on Twitter.
After the children are taken into custody by the Border Patrol, they are handed over to HHS. But the department has been struggling to accommodate the influx, as the shelters operated until recently with limited capacity because of the pandemic.
HHS is also planning to activate the Target Lodge Pecos North property as another temporary influx facility in Texas for unaccompanied migrant children, the department told CNN.
The property will initially accommodate around 500 children, with the potential to expand to 2,000, the department said, but did not provide a date on which the chalet would be used.
This story has been updated with additional details.