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A Democratic congressman shared new photos of overcrowded conditions at border facilities, where officials have been overwhelmed by a wave of migrants in recent months.
The photos, shared by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” show dozens of children crammed into glass-walled rooms, lying shoulder-to-shoulder with aluminum blankets at a facility. Donna, Texas.
Cuellar, whose district is in south Texas, sharing a border with Mexico, said many migrant children have been detained “longer” than the legal limit of 72 hours.
Under federal law, children arriving at the border without their parents must be transferred within three days of U.S. Border Patrol custody to long-term facilities operated by U.S. Health and Social Services until such time. they can be given to family members or sponsors.
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Cuellar said it was nearly impossible to reduce the number of detainees in detention centers and that border patrol officials are building new shelters to accommodate those numbers.
“Cities, counties, NGOs, we are feeling the brunt of what’s going on with family units,” Cuellar said.
This March 20, 2021, a photo provided by the office of Representative Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, shows detainees at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas.
(Photo courtesy of Representative Henry Cuellar’s Office via AP)
More than 16,000 unaccompanied children were held by the government as of Thursday, including around 5,000 in substandard customs and border protection facilities.
The Biden administration has been criticized for not allowing media access to border patrol facilities temporarily detaining thousands of migrant children seeking to live in the United States.
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Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have called on the administration to open the facility to cameras, saying the current policy is designed to prevent the public from “fully realizing” what is happening at the border.
U.S. officials reported encounters with more than 100,000 migrants at the southern border in February, the highest in a four-month streak in 2019.
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Meetings averaged around 5,000 people per day throughout March, which would be about a 50% increase from February if those numbers were valid for the entire month.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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