A 16-year-old Guatemalan girl detained in the prison camp for migrant children in Tornillo, Texas, told Buzzfeed that she’d already spent four months in Health and Human Services (HHS) custody before she was transferred there, just one of the hundreds of detained children who continue to languish in custody. In the past, reporters have been allowed to tour the camp but hadn’t been allowed to speak to the minors—this changed during this recent visit, exposing more of Trump’s cruelest policy yet.
“Officials said the average length of time that teens spend at Tornillo is 25 days,” Buzzfeed continued. “Yet many of the teens living at the camp have spent weeks or even months in HHS shelters before arriving at Tornillo.” A group of teen boys who were on their way to court had already spent at least three months in HHS custody were now hearing they could be stuck at Tornillo for months longer.
“None of the boys had legal representation at the court hearing—they were just accompanied to court by a [contractor] BCFS employee. All of them asked the judge to delay their cases so they could find an immigration lawyer. They were given until late January to do so.” Unlike criminal court, immigrants are not guaranteed legal counsel in immigration court, which has led to children and toddlers appearing in front of a judge by themselves.
“Everyone in HHS care receives a ‘Know Your Rights’ training,” Buzzfeed continues, but if the kids at Tornillo are seeking legal representation, “the children must fill out a form—a difficult task for many of the children at Tornillo. The incident commander said most of the facility's residents are at a fourth-grade learning level.”
This same incident commander—who works for BCFS—said that more than half of Tornillo’s detained children continue to be there because of delays from increased sponsor vetting, which in reality are intentional roadblocks to kids getting released to homes, oftentimes belonging to relatives. "It is the extra precaution that HHS has put in place for sponsors," he said. "That is absolutely what has caused this, without any question whatsoever."
But administrative delays are just the mechanism the administration uses to to justify detaining kids if it can’t deport them right away. In the meantime, Tornillo just keeps getting bigger—from about 400 beds this past summer, to as many as 3,800 beds by the end of the year—as this “temporary” prison camp also keeps getting extended. "I frankly thought we were done here in July," the incident commander said. But this horror show is still here.