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DONNA, Texas (AP) – The Biden administration first allowed reporters on Tuesday into its main border detention center for migrant children, revealing a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 people, including children and families, were crammed into a space provided for 250 and the youngest were kept in a large play pen with mats on the floor to sleep on.
With thousands of children and families arriving at the US-Mexico border in recent weeks and packing facilities, President Joe Biden has been under pressure to bring more transparency to the process. U.S. Customs and Border Protection have cleared two Associated Press reporters and a CBS crew to visit Donna, Texas, facility in the Rio Grande Valley, the nation’s busiest passage corridor illegal.
More than 4,100 people were staying on the property on Tuesday. Most were unaccompanied children treated in tents before being taken to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services and then placed with a family member, parent or sponsor.
The children were housed by the hundreds in eight “pods” formed by plastic dividers, each about 3,200 square feet (297 square meters). Most of the pods contained more than 500 children.
Oscar Escamilla, acting director general of the US border patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, said 250 to 300 children enter each day and many fewer leave.
The youngest children – among them, a 3-year-old girl cared for by her 11-year-old brother and a newborn with a 17-year-old mother – are kept away from pods and sleep in a playpen.
On Tuesday, journalists observed children being treated. They went to a small room for lice inspection and a checkup. Their hair was hosed down and the towels were thrown in a black bin marked “Poux”. The children – many of whom made long journeys to the border, including stretches on foot – were also checked for scabies, fever and other ailments. No COVID-19 test has been given unless a child is showing symptoms.
The nurse practitioners also did psychological tests, asking the children if they were having suicidal thoughts. All laces have been removed to avoid injuring anyone.
The children were then taken into a green turf room to a large admission room. People 14 years of age and over take their fingerprints and have their picture taken; young children did not.
They went to a second reception room where they received notices to appear in immigration court. Border Patrol officers asked them if they had any contact in the United States and allowed the child to call that person.
The children were given bracelets with a barcode that shows a history of their shower and medical conditions.
Outside the facility, the roar of construction equipment could be heard with the air conditioning units.
The Biden administration continued to deport adults attempting to cross the border under a coronavirus public health statement issued by former President Donald Trump. Biden also attempted to deport most of the families traveling together, but changes in Mexican law forced officers to release many parents and children in the United States.
Biden has refused to resume the Trump-era practice of deporting unaccompanied immigrant children. Several hundred children and adolescents cross the border every day, most fleeing violence, poverty or the effects of natural disasters in Central America. In some cases, parents refused to enter the United States sent their children alone across the border, in the hope that they would eventually be placed with relatives.
The Border Patrol apprehends many more children every day than health and social services places with U.S. sponsors, causing a serious backlog in the system. The border patrol is usually not supposed to detain children for more than three days, but health and social services are running out of space.
Over 2,000 children stayed at Donna’s facility for more than 72 hours, including 39 for more than 15 days.
HHS accommodates children in convention centers in Dallas and San Diego and opens large-scale sites in San Antonio, El Paso and elsewhere.
Biden has come under heavy criticism from Republicans seeking to defend Trump’s immigration record, which includes the separation of thousands of immigrant families as part of a “zero tolerance” policy.
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