HOUSTON (AP) – The day after giving birth at a border hospital in Texas, Nailet and her newborn son were taken by federal agents to a shelter often referred to by immigrants as the ‘refrigerator’.
Inside, large cells were full of women and their young children. Nailet and her son were housed with 15 other women and given a mat to sleep on, with little room to distance themselves despite the coronavirus pandemic, she said. The lights stayed on around the clock. Children sneezed and coughed constantly.
Nailet, who kept her newborn warm with a blanket given to her at the hospital, told The Associated Press that Border Patrol agents would not tell her when they would be released. She and her son were held in a border guard station for six days. That’s twice as long as federal rules generally allow.
“I constantly had to insist that they bring me wipes and diapers,” said Nailet, who left Cuba last year and asked for her last name to be withdrawn for fear of retaliation if she was forced to return.
In the early weeks of President Joe Biden’s administration, greater numbers of immigrant families have crossed the US-Mexico border. Warning signs are emerging of the border crises that have characterized former President Donald Trump’s tenure: hundreds of newly released immigrants are being dropped off at nonprofits, sometimes unexpectedly, and reports like Nailet about long-term detention in short-term facilities are growing.
Measures to contain the virus have left the space in shelter facilities overwhelmed during a wave of arrivals in 2018 and 2019, as reports emerged of families packed in cells and unaccompanied children caring for each other.
Most Border Patrol stations are not designed to serve children and families or to hold people for long periods of time. To cope with the new influx, the agency reopened a large tent facility in South Texas on Tuesday to house immigrant families and children.
In a statement last week, US Customs and Border Protection said some of its facilities had reached “maximum secure storage capacity” and identified several challenges: COVID-19 protocols, changes to Mexican law, and limited space to hold immigrants.
“We will continue to use all current authorities to prevent people from being held in congregations for extended periods,” said the agency, declining an interview request.
Meanwhile, long-term care facilities for children crossing the border alone – some sent by parents who have to wait in Mexico – are 80% full. US Health and Human Services, which runs these centers, will reopen a surge facility in a former oilfield workers’ camp in Carrizo Springs, Texas, as early as Monday. It can accommodate about 700 teenagers. Surge facilities have an estimated cost of $ 775 per child per day, and the Democrats have sharply criticized them during the Trump years.
There is no clear driving factor behind the increase in families and children crossing the road. Some experts and lawyers believe that more people are trying to cross illegally now that Biden is president, believing his administration will be more tolerant than Trump’s.
Many have waited a year or more as part of Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program that forces asylum seekers to stay south of the border while a judge hears their case. The White House is not adding people to the program, but has not said how it will resolve pending cases. It has also refused to deport unaccompanied children under a Trump pandemic-related public health order.
Others mention the consequences of natural disasters in Central America and unrest in countries such as Haiti.
The US has also stopped sending some immigrant families back to parts of Mexico, particularly areas in the state of Tamaulipas opposite South Texas. The change in practice appears to be uneven: immigrants are being displaced elsewhere and there is no clear explanation for the differences.
A law has entered into force in Mexico prohibiting the detention of children in migrant detention centers. But Mexico’s State Department said in a statement that agreements with the US during the pandemic remain “on the same terms.” The statement said, “It is normal for adjustments at the local level, but that doesn’t mean the practice has changed or stopped.”
Some pregnant mothers, such as Nailet, who was again refused entry to the American Cross during childbirth. Their children become American citizens by birthright. The Border Patrol generally releases those families into the country, although there are reports of immigrant parents and US-born children being deported.
In Nailet’s case, CBP said an unforeseen spike in the number of families crossing the border at Del Rio, about 150 miles west of San Antonio, led to her long-term detention.
Proponents say officials should have released Nailet quickly, as well as other families with young children, and speed up processing to avoid delays. Authorities have long resisted what they call ‘capture and release’, which they say inspires more immigrants to try to enter the country illegally, often through smugglers linked to transnational gangs.
Still in pain after delivery, Nailet nursed her newborn baby in the cold cell. When she told the border agents that the hospital said she would be back on February 1, she said they refused to take her.
CBP says Nailet and her son passed a health check on Wednesday evening.
She was released on Thursday and taken to a hotel with the help of a nonprofit organization, the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, one of several organizations that receives larger numbers of immigrant families after they leave custody.
Dr. Amy Cohen, child psychiatrist and executive director of the immigration group Every Last One, described how border detention can traumatize a newborn: the cold, the constant light, the stress of their nursing mother.
“That is a very vulnerable time,” she said. “He consumes the stress she is experiencing. This is his first introduction to the world outside the womb. This is extremely cruel and dangerous. “
A previous increase in illegal border crossings coupled with delays in processing families led to appalling conditions at several border stations in 2019, with a shortage of food and water and children who in many cases had to fend for themselves.
The year before, when the Trump administration separated thousands of immigrant families under the “zero tolerance policy” many people were held in a converted warehouse in South Texas. Thousands of children taken from their parents were under government custody, including surge facilities in Tornillo, Texas, and Homestead, Florida.
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Associated Press journalists Christopher Sherman and María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.