In Biden’s early days, signs of Trump-era problems at border
HOUSTON — The day after she gave birth in a Texas border hospital, Nailet and her newborn son were taken by federal agents to a holding facility that immigrants often refer to as the “icebox.”
Inside, large cells were packed with women and their young children. Nailet and her son were housed with 15 other women and given a mat to sleep on, with little space to distance despite the coronavirus pandemic, she said. The lights stayed on round the clock. Children constantly sneezed and coughed.
Nailet, who kept her newborn warm with a quilt she got at the hospital, told The Associated Press that Border Patrol agents wouldn’t tell her when they would be released. She and her son were detained for six days in a Border Patrol station. That’s twice as long as federal rules generally allow.
“I had to constantly insist that they bring me wipes and diapers,” said Nailet, who left Cuba last year and asked that her last name be withheld for fear of retribution if she’s forced to return.
Larger numbers of immigrant families have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the first weeks of President Joe Biden’s administration. Warning signs are emerging of the border crises that marked former President Donald Trump’s term: Hundreds of newly released immigrants are getting dropped off with nonprofit groups, sometimes unexpectedly, and accounts like Nailet’s of prolonged detention in shortterm facilities are growing.
Measures to control the virus have sharply cut space in holding facilities that got overwhelmed during a surge of arrivals in 2018 and 2019, when reports emerged of families packed into cells and unaccompanied children having to care for each other. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday that its enforcement encounters at the southwest border rose 6 percent in January from the previous month, part of a steady rise since crossings plummeted at the beginning of the pandemic.
Most of the Border Patrol’s stations aren’t designed to serve children and families or hold people long term. To deal with the new influx, the agency reopened a large tent facility in South Texas on Tuesday to house immigrant families and children.
In a statement last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said some of its facilities had reached “maximum safe holding capacity” and cited several challenges: COVID19 protocols, changes in Mexican law and limited space to hold immigrants.
“We will continue to use all current authorities to avoid keeping individuals in a congregate setting for any length of time,” said the agency, which declined an interview request.
Meanwhile, long-term holding facilities for children who cross the border alone — some sent by parents forced to wait in Mexico — are 80 percent full. U.S. Health and Human Services, which runs those centers, will reopen a surge facility at a former camp for oil field workers in Carrizo Springs, Texas, as early as Monday. It can accommodate about 700 teenagers. Surge facilities have an estimated cost of $775 per child per day, and Democrats sharply criticized them during the Trump years.
There’s no clear driving factor for the increase in families and children crossing. Some experts and advocates believe more are trying to cross illegally now that Biden is president, believing his administration will be more permissive than Trump’s.