The US Border Patrol today allowed reporters to briefly visit the facility where it holds families arrested at the southern US border, responding to new criticism and protests over the Trump Administration's "zero tolerance" policy and resulting separation of families.
More than 1100 people were inside the large, dark facility that's divided into separate wings for unaccompanied children, adults on their own, and mothers and fathers with children.
The cages in each wing open out into common areas to use portable restrooms. The overhead lighting in the warehouse stay on around the clock.
Reporters were not allowed by agents to interview any of the detainees or take photos.
Nearly 2000 children have been taken from their parents since Attorney-General Jeff Sessions announced the policy, which directs Homeland Security officials to refer all cases of illegal entry into the United States for prosecution.
Church groups and human rights advocates have sharply criticized the policy, calling it inhumane.
Stories have spread of children being torn from their parents' arms, and parents not being able to find where their kids have gone.
A group of congressional lawmakers visited the same facility and were set to visit a longer-term shelter holding around 1500 children — many of whom were separated from their parents.
"Those kids inside who have been separated from their parents are already being traumatised," said Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who was denied entry earlier this month to a children's shelter.
"It doesn't matter whether the floor is swept and the bedsheets tucked in tight."
In Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for people trying to enter the US, Border Patrol officials argue that they have to crack down on migrants and separate adults from children as a deterrent to others.
"When you exempt a group of people from the law ... that creates a draw," said Manuel Padilla, the Border Patrol's chief agent here. "That creates the trends right here."
Agents running the holding facility — generally known as "Ursula" for the name of the street it's on — said everyone detained is given adequate food, access to showers and laundered clothes, and medical care.
People are supposed to move through the facility quickly. Under US law, children are required to be turned over within three days to shelters funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Padilla said agents in the Rio Grande Valley have allowed families with children under the age of 5 to stay together in most cases.
An advocate who spent several hours in the facility at the weekend said she was deeply troubled by what she found.
Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women's Refugee Commission, met a 16-year-old girl who had been taking care of a young girl for three days. The teen and others in their cage thought the girl was 2 years old.
"She had to teach other kids in the cell to change her [nappy]," Brane said.
Brane said that after a lawyer started to ask questions, agents found the girl's aunt and reunited the two. It turned out that the girl was actually 4. Part of the problem was that she didn't speak Spanish, but K'iche, a language indigenous to Guatemala.
"She was so traumatised that she wasn't talking," Brane said. "She was just curled up in a little ball."
Brane said she also saw officials at the facility scold a group of 5-year-olds for playing around in their cage, telling them to settle down. There are no toys or books.
But one boy nearby wasn't playing with the rest. According to Brane, he was quiet, clutching a piece of paper that was a photocopy of his mother's ID card.
-AP
