WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden’s government has been trying for weeks to prevent the public from seeing images like those that emerged on Monday, showing immigrant children in US custody at the border sleeping on mats under aluminum blankets, separated into groups by plastic partitions.
Government officials have vehemently refused to call the detention of more than 15,000 children in US custody, or the conditions in which they live, a crisis. But they prevented most strangers’ efforts to decide for themselves.
Authorities have banned lawyers from non-profit organizations that oversee entry into a Border Patrol tent where thousands of children and adolescents are being held. And federal agencies have refused or ignored dozens of media requests for access to places of detention. That access has been granted several times by President Donald Trump’s administration, whose restrictive immigration approach Biden has promised to reverse.
The new president faces growing criticism for the apparent secrecy on the border, including from other Democrats.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Monday that “the government has a commitment to transparency to ensure that the media have a chance to report on all aspects of what is happening at the border.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki added that the White House is working with homeland security officials and the Department of Health and Human Services to “finalize the details” and that she hopes to have an update in the “next few days” .
On Monday, Axios published for the first time a series of photos taken inside the largest detention center of the Border Patrol, a large tent in the city of Donna, in southern Texas. The photos were released by Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat from the border town of Laredo.
Cuellar said he released the photos in part because the government refused media access to Donna’s tent. He also said he wanted to draw attention to the extreme challenges that border agents face when watching so many children, sometimes for a week or more, despite the Border Patrol’s three-day limit on the detention of minors.
“We must take care of these children as if they were our own children,” said Cuellar.
Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the United States should allow media access to border facilities, while respecting the privacy of immigrants detained in the interior. He noted the risk of sharing images of children who have faced trauma without permission.
“We must be aware of these conditions,” said Saenz. “People need to see them so that they can assess inhumanity and, hopefully, embark on more humane policies.”
The White House prides itself on its methodical implementation of policy during its first 50 days, but West Wing advisers recognize in particular that they were taken aback by the sudden increase in migrants on the border and the resulting media furor.
Republican lawmakers were left out of the debate over the government’s $ 1.9 trillion COVID relief bill. Although none of them voted in favor of the package, their opposition was silenced and they focused on issues of cultural warfare, such as the debate over racial stereotypes in some books by Dr. Seuss, rather than a bill widely popular with voters. republicans.
But the GOP grabbed the border situation with both hands, reliving the issue that was instrumental in propelling Trump to the top of the Republican camp in 2016. In 2018, the Trump administration detained hundreds of children in many of the same facilities being used now afterwards to separate them from their parents. The following year, hundreds of families and children detained at a western Texas border post spent days without adequate food, water or soap.
Biden maintained a Trump-era public health order and expelled thousands of immigrant adults and families, but refused to expel immigrant children without parents after a federal appeals court in January paved the way for him to do so. He also acted to accelerate the reunification of hundreds of separate immigrant families.
“What Trump did was horrible,” said Cuellar. “These photos show that even with our best intentions, and the Biden government has the best intentions, it is still very difficult.”
Cuellar said the White House needs to work harder with Mexico and Central America to prevent people from leaving their countries of origin. The White House said on Monday that top officials are going to Mexico and Guatemala this week.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who visited a facility in El Paso, Texas, last week, told NPR: “We want to ensure that the press has access to hold the administration accountable.”
The Associated Press requested access to border facilities for more than a month. Reporters asked Health and Human Services on February 4 to allow entry into a reopened emergency facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, which was home to hundreds of teenagers. And they asked Homeland Security officials to access the Border Patrol facilities at least seven times, with no response. The AP also petitioned Psaki to open facilities at the border.
Border agencies under Trump’s command allowed limited media tours of the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services facilities. Several of these visits revealed worrying conditions in the countryside, including the detention of a large number of children up to 5 years old separated from their parents.
According to Biden, the agencies also denied full access to non-profit lawyers who oversee the facilities where children are detained. These supervisory visits take place under the agreement of a federal court.
When lawyers visited the Border Patrol facilities in Donna this month, where thousands of children are being held, the agents refused to let them in and the Justice Department said they had no right to gain access. Lawyers were forced to interview children outside. The Justice Department declined to comment.
The recently published photos released by Cuellar’s office show groups of children clustered within the walls. Some seem to be watching television, while others are lying on the carpet, some side by side. Children are shown wearing surgical masks, but are close to each other.
The Donna facility consists of large interlocking tents. Aerial photos taken by the AP show closed outdoor areas where children can go. But lawyers who interviewed children held in Donna say that some may go days without being allowed to leave.
The government is rushing to open up more space to remove some 5,000 children from Border Patrol detention and take them to the Health and Human Services facilities that are best suited for young people. He also tried to expedite the release of children in HHS custody to parents and other sponsors in the United States. But border agents continue to apprehend many more children daily than HHS is releasing, although more than 40% of young people in the system have a parent or legal guardian who could take them.
In the meantime, the government is seeing its emergency facilities for immigrant children approaching capacity almost as quickly as it can open them. The downtown Dallas convention center has 1,500 teenagers less than a week after opening and is expected to host an additional 500 teenagers on Monday, according to HHS. Its current capacity is 2,300 people.
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Lemire reported from New York and Merchant reported from Houston.