A 17-year-old mom allowed to shower and brush her teeth only once every five days. A 4-year-old girl so filthy her hair was matted. Freezing temperatures that one doctor compared to “a torture facility.” These were the Border Patrol facility conditions described in new court documents, detailing the inhumane and barbaric treatment of children in U.S. custody.
In the mom’s case, court documents said that her baby was sick with fever and a cough, but that she was afraid that asking for help would only prolong their detention at the McAllen, Texas, facility. “She said she has been there nearly three weeks,” even though minors are not supposed to be jailed in these facilities past 72 hours. This is how children die. “He feels frozen to the touch,” she said. “We are all so sad to be held in a place like this.”
She wasn’t alone: “Teens and children, detained days or weeks by U.S. border authorities, described frigid cells where flu-stricken youngsters in dirty clothes ran fevers, vomited and cried with no idea when they would be getting out.” Kids described not being able to wash their hands with soap and water after using the bathroom. This is how children keep getting sick, and dying.
These dire conditions were already confirmed by visiting attorneys, and now “advocates are seeking an emergency order to require immediate inspections of the Texas facilities, access for doctors and the prompt release of children to parents or other close relatives in the United States.” The court documents also confirm that children are still being stolen from their families, in cases in which kids are traveling with close relatives, but not their biological parents.
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At the Clint, Texas, border facility, a 12-year-old girl told attorneys that she and her two younger siblings were stolen from their grandmother. “The guards told the girls it could take as long as two weeks for them to be reunited with their mother in Massachusetts.” It’s not clear how long they’d already been there. “Every night my sisters keep asking me, ‘When will our mommy come get us?’” she said. “I don’t know what to tell them. It’s very hard for all of us to be here.”
The American Bar Association recently condemned the Trump administration’s neglectful treatment of kids, saying they’re being jailed in “unsafe and unhealthy conditions in violation of federal and state law, court settlements and common decency,” and demanding that Congress “pass supplemental appropriations to ensure the appropriate treatment and care of unaccompanied immigrant children in government custody.”
But the AP’s report came on the same day that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer caved to the Trump administration and gave it billions of dollars in supplemental funding without imposing the oversight crafted by House Democrats to protect kids, infuriating many who are rightfully concerned that the administration will instead increase its cruelty. ”The passage of the Senate supplemental bill,” said the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, “is a betrayal of our American values.”