Hungry, scared and sick: Inside the Clint Migrant Detention Center, Tex.

CLINT, Texas – Since the Border Patrol opened its station at Clint, Texas, in 2013, it was a no-brainer in this farming city of West Texas. Separated from the surrounding cotton fields and pastures by a wire fence, the station was on the city's main road, close to a grocery store, Good News Apostolic Church and La Indita. tortillería. Most people around Clint had no idea what was going on inside. Agents came and went in vans; buses entered the gates with an occasional load of children stopped at the border, four miles to the south.

But inside the secret site that is currently on the front lines of the southwestern border crisis, the men and women working there were struggling with nightmares.

Epidemics of scabies, shingles and chicken pox are spreading among hundreds of children incarcerated in narrow cells, agents said. The stench of the children's dirty clothes was so strong that it spread in the agents' personal clothes – the inhabitants of the city bit their noses when they left work. The children cried constantly. One of the girls seemed quite likely to try to commit suicide so that the officers forced her to sleep on a bed in front of them, so that they could watch her while they were dealing with the new ones. arrivals.

"The stadium is starting to become a robot," said a former Border Patrol officer who had been working at Clint Station since it was built. He explained that he had been ordered to remove beds from children in order to free up space in detention cells, part of his daily routine which he said had become "heartbreaking".

Clint's little-known border patrol has suddenly become the public face of the chaos that reigns on the southern border of the United States, after immigration lawyers began reporting on the children's issues. They saw – some were barely five months old – and the filthy and overcrowded conditions in which they were held.

Border patrol leaders, including Aaron Hull, the agency's chief officer of the agency's El Paso patrol, have disputed descriptions of degrading conditions inside Clint's and D & # 39; other places of detention of migrants around El Paso, claiming that their facilities had been managed in a rigorous and humane manner even after an attack. deaths of migrant children in federal institutions.

But a review of Clint station operations near the eastern edge of El Paso shows that agency officials had known for months that some children did not have a bed to sleep in, that they could not cleanse themselves and were sometimes hungry. His own agents had sounded the alarm and found himself under the obligation to accommodate even more newcomers.

Stories of what happened at Clint and the nearby border facilities are based on dozens of interviews conducted by the New York Times and the El Paso Times with current and former agents and supervisors of border patrol; lawyers, legislators and assistants who visited the institution; and an immigrant father whose children were detained. The review also included affidavits from those who spent time at the El Paso border facilities, inspection reports and Clint's neighbors accounts.

The conditions at Clint represent a headache not only for local officials, but also for Congress, where lawmakers have spent weeks arguing over the terms of a humanitarian aid program of 4.6 billions of dollars for border facilities. Some claim that the lack of federal investments explains why the sites have been strained. But reports of misery pushed several Democratic legislators to vote against the final bill, which did not include provisions for monitoring and enforcement.

By all accounts, the border patrol's attempt to continue making space for new children in Clint even though it was unable to find space to send them to better equipped facilities was a source of concern for many people who worked there.

"I can not tell you how many times I would talk to agents and they would have tears in their eyes," said an officer, a 13-year-old veteran of the Border Patrol who worked for Clint.

Mary E. González, a Democratic State legislator who visited the Clint station last week, said border police officers had told her she had repeatedly warned their superiors about the installation overcrowded, but that the federal authorities had not taken any action.

"They said," We were ringing alarms, we were not doing it and no one was listening to us "- the agents said that," said Ms. González. "I sincerely believe that the higher echelons have allowed the Clint situation to happen."

The architects designed the Clint station as an advanced base type – filled with gas stations, off-road vehicle garages and stables – from which the agents could make inroads along the border.

The station was never designed to hold more than 100 adult men and was designed with the idea that migrants would only be detained for a few hours before being transferred elsewhere.

Officials allowed journalists and members of Congress to make controlled visits to Clint, but banned them from bringing phones or cameras and entering certain areas. But thanks to interviews with dozens of people who knew the station – lawyers, former detainees and staff members – the Times was able to model the main places of detention of the children: the central treatment area of ​​the station with its cells in blocks ashes; a loading area and a landscaped yard; and a warehouse on the property.

Some parts of the site look like what we could see in many government buildings. Photographs in the hallway celebrate the work of the Border Patrol, showing officers on horseback and all-terrain vehicles. A conference room has high back chairs covered with faux leather.

But the sense of normality fades as one sinks into the station. A detachment of Coast Guard personnel, sent to help overworked officers, stores an ad hoc pantry with items such as oatmeal and instant noodles. Supervisors in blue shirts travel the station, hired by an outside contractor to monitor the detained children.

Beyond the pantry, a door leads to the treatment center of the site, with a dozen cells. One day this month, about twenty girls were crammed into a cell filled so that some were slumped on the ground. You could see young children in some cells, guarded by older children.

One of the cells functioned as a quarantine unit or "influenza cell" for children with contagious diseases; employees sometimes wore medical masks and gloves to protect themselves.

Part of the treatment area was reserved for detained children to be able to call family members. Many burst into tears as they heard the voices of their loved ones, episodes so frequent that some officers simply shrugged their shoulders in response.

Clint is known to hold what agents call the United States, or unaccompanied foreign children – children crossing the border alone or with parents who are not their parents.

Three officers working in Clint reported seeing unaccompanied children under the age of 3 entering the facility. Lawyers who recently inspected the site as part of a lawsuit on the rights of migrant children said they saw children as young as 5 months old. An officer who has been working for the Border Patrol for 13 years – and who, like the other people interviewed as part of this article, spoke under the guise of anonymity because it was not not allowed to discuss the situation – reports confirmed by immigration lawyers that agents allegedly asked teenage migrants to help take care of the youngest children.

"We have nine agents in treatment, two agents in charge of U.A.C. and we have kids who need to change their diapers, and we can not do it, "said the officer. "We can not wear them or change diapers. We are asking 16- and 17-year-olds to help us.

As the flow of immigration changes, the scene inside Clint has also changed. It is estimated that the number of children on the site has exceeded 700 in April and May and has established itself at nearly 250 two weeks ago. In an effort to relieve overcrowding, the officers removed all children from Clint and relocated more than 100 children to the station a few days later.

Unaccompanied boys are kept in a developed loading area that can accommodate around 50 people. Only a few weeks ago, older boys were kept in a camp under a tent.

Families, including adult relatives, were also sent to Clint earlier this year and Rep. Will Hurd, a Republican whose Texas district includes Clint, said 11 men "apprehended that morning" were also being held. on the site during his visit in June. 29

Before the influx of migrants began to decline in recent weeks, the agents said they had kept the families in a warehouse normally used to house A.T.V. It has been converted into two storage areas to accommodate 50 people each.

At least two Border Patrol officers in Clint said they had expressed concern about the situation in the station to their superiors a few months ago. Even before that, senior officials at Homeland Security in Washington worried a lot about the chief patrol officer of the El Paso area and his oversight of the facility during the last year, while the strengthening of security along other sections of the border had resulted in a sharp increase in the number of migrants the section that runs from New Mexico to West Texas.

The situation became so serious that in January officials of the Customs and Border Protection Directorate, who oversaw the border patrol, made the unusual decision to order the sector chief, Mr. Hull, to go to headquarters in Washington for a face-to-face meeting. face to face. Officials feared that Hull, an agency elder who speaks with a pronounced twang in Texas, had acted too slowly to put security measures in place after the deaths of migrant children, according to a senior official. of internal security. After the meeting, Mr. Hull advanced with the new procedures.

But tension has persisted between Hull and officials in Washington, particularly in recent months, as the number of migrants continues to rise in his facilities. Officials say Hint and Matthew Harris, the Clint station's chief, have been slow to follow instructions and report on developments in their area, two Homeland Security officials say.

Mr. Hull is perceived as a tough guy when it comes to immigration. It has often been said that migrants exaggerated the problems they faced in their home country.

Border agency agents refused requests for multiple interviews.

Last month, John Sanders, acting chief of the PCO, ordered an internal investigation into Clint's facilities. The investigation – which is conducted by the agency's Professional Liability Office and the department's Inspector General – dealt with allegations of professional misconduct.

As part of this review, investigators conducted interviews and watched hours of video footage to see how the officers treated the inmates. Until now, investigators have found little evidence to corroborate allegations of misconduct. But they found that the capacity of the facility is several times higher and that its conditions are appalling.

The hustle and bustle around the site draws attention to Border Patrol facilities, which are among the least regulated immigration detention centers in the United States.

This is partly because they are in most cases designed to detain migrants for up to 72 hours, before being transferred to better equipped premises managed by other government agencies and enforced by stricter regulations. for example, the number of toilets and showers required. . But the 72-hour limit was often exceeded during the current migration wave; children stay in Clint for weeks.

The lawyers who visited the Clint station described children dressed in dirty clothes, often without diapers and without access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap, which drove the country's inhabitants to donate equipment that the border patrol refused.

But Hull painted a very different picture of his need for supplies in April, when the number of children detained at Clint was on the rise. Hull told Doña Ana County Commissioners in Las Cruces, New Jersey, in April, that his stations had enough supplies.

"Twenty years ago, we were lucky if we had juices and crackers for people in detention," Hull was quoted as saying in the Las Cruces Sun-News. "Now, our stations are more like Walmarts – with diapers and infant formula and all kinds of things, like food and snacks, for which we have no resources or manpower and do not have the resources. space needed to hold them. "

One day in April, a man from Washington arrived without warning around noon at Clint station. He introduced himself as Henry Moak and told the officers inside that he was there to inspect the site as part of his role as Customs Accountability and Border Protection Officer.

On the day of Mr. Moak's visit, the Clint station was well above his capacity and had 291 children. Mr. Moak found evidence of lice infestation; children also told him about his hunger and the obligation to sleep on the floor.

A girl, aged 14, from El Salvador, remained in detention for 14 days in Clint, including nine days in a nearby hospital, where border police officers accompanied her and monitored. Mr. Moak did not specify in his report why the girl had been transported to the hospital. When the girl returned to Clint's home, another child had gone to bed, so she had to sleep on the floor.

Two sisters from Honduras, an eleven-year-old and seven-year-old, told Mr. Moak that they had to sleep on benches in the waiting room of the house. Institution and would only take out their own cradle when other children were transferred. "The sisters said that they had not washed their teeth or brushed their teeth since arriving at Clint Station," Moak said in a statement. report. Her review revealed that douches had been offered twice during the girls' custody, but they slept each time.

Mr. Moak finally said that Clint was up to standard.

Warren Binford, one of the lawyers who inspected the station in June, director of the Clinical Law Program at Willamette University, in Oregon, said that during all his years of detention in detention and shelter centers, she had never encountered such conditions – 351 children were piling into what she described as a prison environment.

She reviewed the list and was shocked to see more than 100 very young children listed. "My God, these are babies, I realized. They keep babies here, "she said.

A teenage mother from El Salvador said that border police officers at the border had taken her medicine for her son, who had a fever.

"Did they throw something else?" Ms. Binford said that she had asked him.

"All," she replied. "They threw away the diapers, baby formula, baby bottle, baby food and my baby's clothes. They threw everything away.

Once in Clint, she told Ms. Binford that the baby's fever had returned and she had begged the agents to give her more medicine. "Anyway, who told you to come to America with your baby?", Said one of the agents, according to the story of the young woman to Mrs. Binford.

Border patrol agents said they had enough supplies in Clint to meet most of the migrants' needs. The center lacks cooking, they said, so ramen, cereal bars, oatmeal and burritos, which make up most of the migrants' food, were all they could do better.

A child from the Border Patrol, who has been working for seven years in the Clint facility, has sometimes been seen crying, but this seems most often due to the fact that their parents missed them. "It's never because they are abused; it's because they're homesick, "she said.

Shortly after Mr. Moak approved the conditions inside Clint, a man named Ruben was desperately trying to find his sons, 11-year-old twins with epilepsy.

The boys had crossed the border together early June with their adult sister. They hoped to find their parents from El Salvador earlier to come to the United States to earn enough money to pay for drugs for the treatment of boys' epilepsy. They need daily injections and a strict regime of care to prevent seizures that they started at the age of 5 years.

But the twins were separated at the border of their sister and sent to Clint.

The first time they spoke to Ruben on the phone, both boys sobbed and asked when they could see their parents again.

"We do not want to be here," they told him.

Ruben has demanded that his family name and that of his sons not be released for fear of reprisals from the US government.

It was only later that Ruben learned that the boys had received at least some of their medications for epilepsy, and neither had had a seizure. But one boy reported having a rash, his face and arms flushed and flaky. Both had a fever and said they had been temporarily sent to the "flu cell".

"There is no one to take care of you there," said one to his father.

It took 13 days after the boys were detained to talk to their father by phone. Clara Long of Human Rights Watch, an in-house lawyer, met the boys, found their parents and helped them make an appeal. The boys were stoic and silent, she said, and shook her hand as if she were "trying to act like little adults" – until they talk to their father. Then they could only answer in one or two words, said Mrs. Long, and wiped them with tears.

Much of the overcrowding seems to have been relieved in Clint and the overall arrivals at the border is slowing down, as new policies force migrants, mainly from Central America, to return to Mexico after asking the asylum, because the heat of the summer deters travelers and the crackdown by Mexico on its southern border prevents many from entering.

A border police officer who has been working for a long time in the El Paso region said that agents had tried to simplify things as much as possible for the children; some bought toys and sports equipment themselves. "Agents play board games and sports with them," he said.

But the border patrol has long "been very proud" to quickly process migrant families and ensure that children do not stay in their rudimentary stations for more than 72 hours, the officer said. Clint, he said, "is not a place for children."

In the surrounding city, many people were perplexed and sad at the news of what was happening to the children in the resort on Alameda Avenue.

"I do not know what happened, but they turned away from their original mission," said Julián Molinar, a retired postal delivery man who lives in a house in front of the train station. . He served in the army in Europe when the Berlin Wall fell, he said, and was appalled by the fact that it was now about building a border wall near home. him. Regarding the installation of Clint, he said, "children should not be detained here."

Dora H. Aguirre, mayor of Clint, expressed sympathy for the agents, who are part of the community of Clint and the nearby town of El Paso. "They are just trying to do their job as a federal agency," she said. "They try to do the best they can."