Border detention centers still in crisis, but improved
Tour offers first glimpse of the conditions for child immigrants
BROWNSVILLE — One boy pressed his face against the plexiglass window of a U.S. Border Patrol holding tank marked in handwritten letters: “Juvie males under 14.” Another broke into a wide smile, happily mouthing “Hola” over and over, while still another sat on a concrete bench and wiped away tears.
Department of Homeland Security officials led a tour of the Fort Brown Border Patrol station on Wednesday, offering the first glimpse of detention conditions since an influx of nearly 50,0000 unaccompanied children swamped border facilities and put the federal government under pressure for its handling of what administration officials, advocates and members of Congress from Texas are calling a humanitarian crisis.
Among those watching closely are U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. They sent a letter to the Obama administration Wednesday, asking howthe children are being placed in the care of government-designated guardians to ensure that they do not fall into the hands of gang members andothers with criminals affiliations — and how they are tracked after
they leave federal custody.
“The children who have made this journey are alone and vulnerable — facing the threat of murder, kidnapping, rape, sexual slavery, and forced labor,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
Cornyn, the ranking Republican on an immigration panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Cuellar, a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, also plan to follow up Thursday with a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell.
The two lawmakers said they are seeking details of how officials plan to protect the children and monitor their custody during the lengthy process to determine whether they will be sent back to their homes in Central America.
Cuellar also met with Honduran Ambassador Jorge Ramon Hernandez Alcerro on Wednesday to discuss how to deal with the return of unaccompanied children who are not granted U.S. asylum.
Cuellar also has met in recent days with the ambassadors of Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as with officials in the Mexican Embassy. Officials say that over 70 percent of the current influx of migrants and unaccompanied children at the Texas border are not from Mexico, making it harder to turn them back or repatriate them.
“I know they’re overwhelmed and they’re trying to do everything they can,” Cornyn said Wednesday. “But, simply, they can’t handle the capacity.”
Fears for kids’ safety
Cornyn said he’s worried that the Border Patrol, diverted to handle the influx of unaccompanied children and families with children, can’t provide adequate border security. He said he also is concerned about how the Department of Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement is caring for children once they are placed in ORR’s shelters.
“Trying to deal with this wave of humanity, there are going to be things that fall through the cracks, and some of those may be harmful to the very children we are trying to protect,” Cornyn said.
The questions about the children’s safety follow criticism by Republicans in Congress who blame Obama administration policies against deporting people brought into the country illegally as children.
“I think what was initially, perhaps, motivated by the president’s desire to help people who were in dire straits has really backfired and boomeranged and created an even worse problem on our own soil,” Cornyn said, referring to what he and other Republicans consider a more lenient deportation policy applied by the administration to unaccompanied children and families with children that they say is serving to “pull” them across the border
White House officials have insisted the crisis is the result of worsening conditions in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, saying children are being driven from their homes because of a confluence of “push” factors including poverty, gang violence and drug cartels — in addition to a desire to reunite with family in the U.S. But the overriding factor driving the youths from their home countries, administration officials said, is an upswing in gang and cartel violence.
‘Priorities for removal’
Last week, Johnson said Homeland Security is exploring options for faster repatriation of unaccompanied children, who by law have special protections that are not afforded to adult detainees.
Johnson said immigrants intercepted at the border shortly after crossing are “priorities for removal” — regardless of their age.
The government’s response to the crisis is not just politically delicate but also constrained by law.
Immigration officials cannot simply deport an unaccompanied child as they would an adult. Unaccompanied children from Mexico generally are quickly returned to the border. Those from countries other than Mexico are supposed to be transferred from Border Patrol custody to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours.
Then the children are to be placed in a network of more than 90 state-licensed shelters and other facilities. The government searches for relatives or other sponsors in the U.S. to care for them while they await the outcome of their immigration cases. Roughly 90 percent are released from custody within about a month.
But the sheer number of children has overwhelmed both federal detention systems, leaving the children to back up in the holding cells in the Rio Grande Valley.
In Texas, the brief and carefully controlled tour did not allow for interviews with children. DHS officials, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, conceded the station was operating at double capacity with about 500 detainees — most of them un- accompanied children.
The officials declined to say how many of the children had been in the station past the 72-hour mark outlined in the law.
“We’d like to move faster,” one official said.
Improved conditions
Many of the children at the Fort Brown station were sleeping shoulder-toshoulder on the concrete floors of the holding cells, some tucked under Red Cross blankets.
Despite the tight quarters and an acknowledgement that Border Patrol officials remain overwhelmed, the tour showed marked improvements over photos leaked in recent weeks of detainees packed tightly into holding cells.
Earlier this month, President Barack Obama tapped the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate housing, transportation and medical care for unaccompanied children.
FEMA officials brought trailers into the Fort Brown station with portable showers and are catering three hot meals a day for the children. Workers contracted by FEMA played soccer with a small group of girls and set up a table with crayons and paper for children.