MEDIA ALLOWED IN AT BORDER FACILITY

Journalists get first look at crowded conditions near border in Texas.

The Biden administration for the first time Tuesday allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children.

The conditions

Reporters saw a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 people, including children and families, were crammed into a space intended for 250 and the youngest were kept in a large play pen with mats on the floor for sleeping.

More than 4,100 people were being housed on the property Tuesday. Most were unaccompanied children processed in tents before being taken to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services and then placed with a family member, relative or sponsor.

The children were being housed by the hundreds in eight “pods” formed by plastic dividers, each about 3,200 square feet. Many of the pods had more than 500 children in them.

Oscar Escamilla, acting executive officer of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, said 250 to 300 kids enter daily and far fewer leave.

The youngest children — among them, a 3-year-old girl being cared for by her 11-year-old brother and a newborn with a 17-yearold mother — are kept out of the pods and sleep in a playpen area.

The visit

With thousands of children and families arriving at the U.S.-MEXico border in recent weeks and packing facilities, President Joe Biden has been under pressure to bring more transparency to the process. U.S. Customs and Border Protection allowed two journalists from The Associated Press and a crew from CBS to tour the facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, the nation’s busiest corridor for illegal crossings.

The policy

The Biden administration has continued expelling adults who try to cross the border under a coronavirus-related public health declaration enacted by former President Donald Trump. Biden also has tried to expel most families traveling together, but changes in Mexican law have forced agents to release many parents and children into the U.S.

Biden has declined to resume the Trump-era practice of expelling unaccompanied immigrant children. Several hundred kids and teenagers are crossing the border daily, most fleeing violence, poverty or the effects of natural disasters in Central America. In some cases, parents refused entry into the U.S. have sent their children across the border alone, hoping they will be placed with relatives eventually.

DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS/ASSOCIATED PRESS Children are being housed by the hundreds in eight “pods” formed by plastic dividers, each about 3,200 square feet. On Tuesday, the Biden administration for the first time allowed journalists inside its main detention facility at the border for migrant children.