In Texas border facility, kids wait without parents in cages
‘Inappropriate conditions’ for children revealed
McALLEN, Texas — Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of children wait away from their parents in a series of cages created by metal fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bags of chips and large foil sheets intended to serve as blankets.
One teenager told an advocate who visited that she was helping care for a young child she didn’t know because the child’s aunt was elsewhere in the facility. She said she had to show others in her cell how to change the girl’s diaper.
The U.S. Border Patrol on Sunday allowed reporters to briefly visit the facility where it holds families arrested at the southern U.S. border, responding to new criticism and protests over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy and resulting separation of families.
More than 1,100 people were inside the large, dark facility with overhead lighting. The facility is divided into separate wings for unaccompanied children, adults on their own, and mothers and fathers with children. The cages in each wing open out into common areas to use portable restrooms. The lights in the warehouse stay on around the clock.
Agents didn’t allow reporters to interview any detainees or take photos.
Nearly 2,000 children have been taken from their parents since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the policy, which directs Homeland Security officials to refer all cases of illegal entry into the United States for prosecution. Church groups and human rights advocates have called the policy inhumane.
Stories have spread of children being torn from their parents’ arms and of parents unable to find where their kids have gone. A group of congressional lawmakers visited the same facility Sunday, along with a shelter holding around 1,500 children — many of whom were separated from their parents.
In Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, Border Patrol officials argue that they have to crack down on migrants and separate adults from children as a deterrent to others. “When you exempt a group of people from the law that creates a draw,” said Manuel Padilla, the Border Patrol’s chief agent there. “That creates the trends right here.”
Agents running the holding facility — generally known as “Ursula” for the name of the street it’s on — said everyone detained is given adequate food, access to showers and laundered clothes, and medical care. People are supposed to move through the facility quickly. Under U.S. law, children are required to be turned over within three days to shelters funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Padilla said agents in the Rio Grande Valley have allowed families with children under the age of 5 to stay together in most cases.
Yet an advocate who spent several hours in the facility Friday said she was deeply troubled by what she found. Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, met with a 16-year-old girl who had been taking care of a young girl for three days. The teen and others in their cage thought the girl was 2.
“She had to teach other kids in the cell to change her diaper,” Brane said.
Brane said that after an attorney started to ask questions, agents found the girl’s aunt and reunited the two. It turned out that the young girl was actually 4 years old. Part of the problem was that she didn’t speak Spanish but an indigenous language. “She was so traumatized that she wasn’t talking,” Brane said.
Brane said she also saw officials at the facility scold a group of 5-year-olds for playing around in their cage. There are no toys or books.
“The government is literally taking kids away from their parents and leaving them in inappropriate conditions,” Brane said. “If a parent left a child in a cage with no supervision with other 5-yearolds, they’d be held accountable.”