HOUSTON (AP) – According to nonprofits overseeing immigrant detention centers, hundreds of immigrant children and teens have been held in a border patrol tent facility.
The lawyers on Thursday interviewed more than a dozen children in Donna, Texas, where the Border Patrol is holding more than 1,000 people. Some youths told the lawyers that they had been in the facility for a week or more, despite the agency’s three-day limit on the detention of children. Many said they shouldn’t have called their parents or other family members who might be wondering where they are.
Despite concerns about the coronavirus, the children are kept so close that they can touch the person next to them, the lawyers said. Some have to wait five days or more to take a shower, and according to the lawyers, there is not always soap, only shampoo.
President Joe Biden’s government denied the attorneys access to the tent facility. During the administration of former President Donald Trump, lawyer visits to border patrol posts revealed serious problems, including dozens of children being held at a rural station without adequate food, water, or soap.
“It is quite surprising that the administration talks about the importance of transparency and then does not show the lawyers for children where they are staying,” said Leecia Welch of the National Center for Juvenile Law, one of the lawyers. “I find that very disappointing.”
While none of the kids reported situations as severely as they did during the Trump era, Welch said the lawyers “couldn’t see it for themselves, so we’re just putting together what they said.”
A 1997 court settlement known as the Flores Agreement sets standards for the detention of immigrant children by the government. Lawyers have the right under Flores to supervise the detention of children. The Justice Department declined to comment on Thursday as to why the lawyers were denied access. Biden’s administration has not responded to several requests from The Associated Press to access the tent.
Government figures show a growing crisis as hundreds of children cross the border and are taken into custody every day. The Border Patrol currently has a record number of more than 3,000 children in detention, according to government data obtained by AP. That figure is increasing almost daily.
More children are waiting longer in prison, as the long-term facilities operated by the U.S. health services and human services have virtually no capacity. Hundreds of children are being arrested daily at much higher rates than HHS releases them to parents or sponsors. HHS currently takes an average of 37 days to release a child.
Biden has stopped the Trump-era practice of expelling immigrant children crossing the border on their own, but has maintained the expulsion of immigrant families and single adults. Although his administration has tried to stop immigrants from entering the US, many think they now have a better chance. There are also increasing reports of parents sending their children across the border alone while they are in Mexico or Central America.
Most border patrol posts are designed for short-term adult detention, with cold, concrete cells with the lights always on. The Donna tent has clear partitions and 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 the flu at the Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas, where minors are currently being held.
HHS has instructed its contractors to lift the capacity limitations imposed during the pandemic and to speed up releases by paying for the children’s airline ticket rather than charging sponsors.
But experts and lawyers who work with children say the government can do more.
While the majority of youth detained by the government are teenagers, both Border Patrol and HHS hold very young children who, in some cases, have been separated from adult caregivers.
The Associated Press this week interviewed the mother of a 4-year-old girl from Guatemala who crossed the border with her aunt on March 5. Border authorities dismissed the aunt and labeled the girl unaccompanied by a parent, placing her in the Donna tent.
The girl’s parents live in Maryland. Her mother told the AP that she didn’t know their daughter’s whereabouts until Sunday and didn’t speak to her until Monday. According to the mother, the girl was unable to speak during a telephone conversation lasting almost 20 minutes. The AP does not identify the girl or her mother to protect the privacy of the child.
“She was crying like something was wrong, like she was scared,” the mother said this week. “I started to cry when I heard her like this. It didn’t seem right to me. “
The parents asked for their daughter to be released directly to them, but on Monday she was sent from South Texas to a foster home in Michigan.
When she spoke to her mother on Tuesday morning, the girl stopped crying but still couldn’t speak.
“She said nothing,” she said. “I’ve tried everything I could, but nothing.”
Both Homeland Security and HHS initially said they could not release the child directly to her mother. But after the family’s lawyers threatened to sue and inquire from AP, the government informed the girl’s mother on Wednesday that they would expedite her release.
Amy Maldonado, a family lawyer, noted that the often cumbersome government processes and inadequate space to detain children at the border predate the Biden government.
“I don’t hold them responsible for all of history,” she said. “But this child could have been released to her mother, and it says on these records.”
Associated Press journalist Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.