An “impressive number” of migrant children detained at a Border Patrol facility in southern Texas are facing overcrowding, with some detained for up to seven days, lawyers who interviewed them on Thursday told CBS News.
Neha Desai, a lawyer representing young migrants in custody of the United States government, said she interviewed children who said they were hungry, as well as minors who showered only once every seven days.
“Some of the boys said the conditions were so overcrowded that they had to take turns sleeping on the floor,” added Desai, citing interviews with nearly a dozen unaccompanied migrant children detained at the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facility. in Donna, Texas.
As of March 2, the Donna complex was holding more than 1,800 people – 729% of its pandemic-era capacity, which was designed for 250 migrants, according to an internal CBP document reviewed by CBS News.
Most of the minors said they only showered once while in US custody, although they were detained for more than five days, according to Desai. Some said they had showered twice.
“They all said they wanted to take a shower and were told they couldn’t,” said Desai.
Protection of US Customs and Borders
As lawyers representing migrant children in the federal court case over the historic Flower Settlement Agreement, Desai and his colleagues at the National Center for Youth Law have the right to interview minors in custody for immigration in the United States.
Desai said she and one of her colleagues have only been able to interview some of the hundreds of migrant children held at Donna’s facilities, a large complex of tents designed to detain unaccompanied minors and families with children for short periods of time. The lawyers said CBP denied them a visit to the facility.
Donna’s facility, which opened last month, has been operating for weeks with its pandemic-era capability, CBP acknowledged in a recent federal court case. The facility held 854 children on February 21 and nearly 700 two days earlier, according to the court case, which also noted that social detachment “could not be seen at all times, due to the increasing number of individuals in custody”.
The children interviewed included a teenager in US custody with her baby and an unaccompanied 8-year-old girl. Some of the children who traveled with their older siblings were even younger, said Desai.
“There were an impressive number of very young children,” she said.
Many of the children were visibly moved, Desai said, especially brothers of different genders who were separated and placed in separate sections of Donna’s facilities. Young detainees, Desai said, also reported not having access to outside activities. She said the children told her “about how they never saw the sun”.
“One of them shared that he could only see the sun when he took a shower, because you can see the sun through the window,” said Desai, noting that the children raised this question during their interviews outside the CBP facilities.
The minors Desai spoke to also said they had not received calls to communicate with relatives. “They were crying hysterically, wanting to talk to the family,” she said.
“We appreciate the extraordinary challenge the government faces to undo the damage from the previous government’s immigration policies,” said Desai. “That said, it is deeply worrying to see young children in facilities for days on end, unable to bathe, call their families or see the sun.”
The Department of Homeland Security said that Border Patrol agents are working to “quickly and efficiently” transfer unaccompanied minors to the United States refugee agency, which Congress has commissioned to house these children.
“Resolving the flow of unaccompanied children crossing our southwestern border is an important priority for this Administration and DHS,” the department said in a statement to CBS News. “It requires a coordinated and sustained response from the entire government.”
Protection of US Customs and Borders
During a call with reporters on Wednesday, CBP acting commissioner Troy Miller said his agency was “struggling” with the number of families of migrants and children in its custody. But he said CBP was offering children access to medical contractors, social security checks, blankets, baby formula, hot meals and showers at least every 48 hours.
“Many of us, perhaps most of us, are parents,” said Miller. “I myself have a 6-year-old son, and these Border Patrol agents go further, every day, to look after the children.”
In an interview with Jorge Ramos, from Univision, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he saw “too many children” when he visited Donna’s facilities earlier this month. But he applauded the Border Patrol agents for their “heroism”, saying the children were well looked after.
“There are no children in cages in the United States,” said Mayorkas, according to a transcript of the interview.
A sharp increase in the number of unaccompanied minors entering US custody along the southern border it severely undermined the government’s ability to prosecute them, creating significant humanitarian and logistical challenges for the Biden administration.
Nearly 9,500 unaccompanied children were taken into custody at the United States 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 have been transferred to shelters overseen by the Refugee Resettlement Office, which is responsible for sheltering them until a sponsor, usually a family member in the United States, is located.
With nearly 9,000 children currently in custody, the refugee agency is struggling to expand its bed space, which has been limited by measures of social distance. To accommodate more children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed these restrictions last week, citing “extraordinary circumstances”.
The lack of bed space and the tendency to increase unaccompanied minors entering the United States has led to congestion of migrant minors at the Border Patrol facilities, most of which are built to briefly detain adult men.
Earlier this week, more than 3,200 unaccompanied children were being held at the Border Patrol facilities, according to CBP documents obtained by CBS News. Nearly 1,400 of the children were detained for more than 72 hours, the legal limit that border officials have for delivering unaccompanied minors to the refugee office.
Desai said the children she interviewed on Thursday expressed a similar feeling about the time they spent in Border Patrol custody.
“Several children said the exact same phrase: ‘the only time I get up is to throw out the trash or go to the bathroom,'” she said.