Attorneys who visited a Border Patrol processing center in McAllen, Texas, as part of an inspection found that officials there had been illegally jailing a sick, prematurely born one-month-old infant and her 17-year-old mother for days, BuzzFeed News reports. This same facility, known as Ursula, was last year called “the ‘epicenter’ of the Trump administration’s policy that has separated thousands of children from their parents” by an official with the Department of Homeland Security.
“You look at this baby,” said attorney Hope Frye, “and there is no question that this baby should be in a tube with a heart monitor.” Instead, the tiny child was wrapped in a sweatshirt and was reportedly “weak and listless.” Her mom, still weak from her emergency C-section in Mexico, was in a wheelchair and hadn’t been able to sleep due to pain.
They shouldn’t have been there in the first place. “Under federal law, minors are required to be released from Border Patrol custody within 72 hours to officials in the Office of Refugee Resettlement after they are determined to be unaccompanied. Both the 17-year-old mother and her 1-month-old baby are considered unaccompanied minors.”
This family isn’t an outlier. The Washington Post last month reported that hundreds of children “have been with the Border Patrol for longer than 72 hours, and another official said that more than 250 children 12 or younger have been in custody for an average of six days.” Who knows how much longer this mom and infant would have been in custody, had attorneys and others not intervened?
“Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, called Department of Homeland Security officials Thursday about the case,” BuzzFeed continued. “On Thursday, nine days after attorneys said the mother was taken into Border Patrol custody, the pair were set to be released to an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter, Frye was told.” Merkley tweeted, “After my emergency call to DHS, they say this family will be released immediately.”
It’s under this sort of treatment that children die, and children will keep dying unless swift action is taken. In May, 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez was found dead while in Border Patrol custody, just one day after complaining about not feeling well. “I want to see specific plans from the administration to provide real medical checks, including checking vitals, on every child who comes into our government’s custody,” Merkley said about this death. “We need urgency, and we need answers, not excuses.”
“No child should ever go into Border Patrol custody—they are not equipped to handle it,” Frye continued. “It was never their mission. Congress needs to do something.” About obtaining the family’s freedom, she said, “I don’t know why it took so long. I don’t know. They would still be detained if we hadn’t come across her in the Flores interview. No question in my mind.” How many others are there that we don’t yet know about, and when we do, will it be too late?
