Two registered nurses at a Rio Grande Valley hospital are sounding alarm bells about urgent treatment being delayed for sick children being held at Border Patrol stations. The nurses told BuzzFeed News that they have treated kids in recent months who are in such failing health by the time they arrive at the hospital that they are "borderline" cases for requiring the care of a specialized rapid response team to keep them from suffering respiratory or cardiac arrest.
The nurses, who work at a hospital in south Texas, where the surge of migrants has spiked, did not give their names for fear of losing their jobs. But their first-hand accounts come after the reported deaths of five children in U.S. custody. The nurses report that migrant children transferred to the hospital by CPB have experienced "severe respiratory distress, dehydration, and fevers that should've prompted agents to hospitalize them sooner," writes BuzzFeed.
"In some cases they should've been here a week ago and they decided to wait until the last minute," one nurse said. "It makes me wonder what Border Patrol is doing. Why is it taking them so long to realize they need to take them to the hospital?" While the nurses believe some of the children are already sick when they are taken into CPB custody, others contract illnesses afterward because they are not being given access to water, soap, and other sanitary needs.
Border Patrol agents have blocked human rights attorneys from visiting with the sickest children in their custody, telling the lawyers that it was for their own safety. Human Rights Watch U.S. Executive Director Nicole Austin-Hillery told Newsweek that that was a completely unacceptable reason. "If those kids are too sick for healthy adults to be in their presence without danger, then they should be at the hospital," she said.
Border Patrol agents have been trying to cut off access to migrant detainees at southern border stations ever since human rights lawyers reported that they were being held in deplorably unsanitary conditions and treated inhumanely. A government watchdog agency released a report Tuesday warning that the overcrowding and prolonged detention of migrant children and adults needed to be addressed immediately.
Donald Trump doesn't have time to deal with that right now. He's too busy planning a big July Fourth party for himself—complete with tanks and military flyovers—at taxpayers' expense. Seems like the millions in taxpayer funding Trump plans to drop on his latest vanity project could go toward ensuring that no more migrant children die in U.S. custody. But loss of life means nothing to Trump—he’s just that sick.