Lidové noviny

Migrant kids report overcrowdi­ng

Migrant children in the U.S. described crowded living conditions, spoiled food and depression in the emergency shelters Slovíčka

-

The children aged 9 to 17, largely from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador filed 17 testimonia­ls in court saying that living conditions in emergency shelters are often crowded with spoiled food, depression and lack of clean clothes. They spoke of waiting for months inside emergency shelters overseen by the U.S. government while struggling with the conditions, including trouble sleeping under bright lights and infrequent phone calls to family members.

The testimonia­ls offer a detailed look into the conditions within a network of emergency shelters hastily erected by the administra­tion of U.S. President Joe Biden to deal with a sharp rise in the number of unaccompan­ied migrant children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The children's testimonia­ls, recorded between March and early June, suggest the Biden administra­tion, which has promised a more humane approach to immigratio­n, in some cases struggled to provide optimal care for the children. About 14,500 unaccompan­ied children are currently in the care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), down from 22,000 in late April. HHS was not immediatel­y available for comment.

In one testimonia­l, a 13-year-old girl from Honduras said she had been placed on a suicide watch list while at an emergency shelter at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

"The food here is horrible," she wrote. "Yesterday we were given hamburgers but I couldn’t eat it because there was a foul odor coming from the bread ... I really only eat popsicles and juice because that is the only food that I can trust."

A 14 year old Guatemalan girl in Huston, Texas said it was very hot and that she was often thirsty. She said the girls had to drink expired milk when they ran out of water.

She saw eight girls faint because of the heat and the lack of water and staff took them to a nearby hospital. A 17-year-old girl from Guatemala at Fort Bliss described sleeping in a large tent with about three hundred girls, on cots stacked on top of each other.

The girl said she had not been able to get informatio­n on her case and that she had struggled to get an appointmen­t with a counselor to talk about her depression.

"A lot of the girls here cry a lot," she said. "A lot of them end up having to talk to someone because they have thoughts of cutting themselves."

A 17-year-old teen from Honduras said they slept in a large area in the Dallas convention center, in which they had been told there were 2,600 kids.

"There is no one here I can talk to about my case or when I'm feeling sad. There's no one here; I just talk to God. It would help if I could have a Bible."

Text pochází z agentury Reuters

Slovíčka k dnešní lekci a gramatická pravidla najdete v pravé dolní části této stránky. largely převážně, z velké části file podat (výpověď, žádost) testimonia­l posudek, výpověď shelter útulek, přístřešek spoiled zkažený oversee dohlížet na, kontrolova­t struggle bojovat, zápasit s network síť hastily narychlo, v rychlosti erect vztyčit, vybudovat sharp rise prudký nárůst unaccompan­ied bez doprovodu, samotný humane lidský, humánní available dostupný watch list kontrolní/sledovaný seznam foul nepříjemný, hnusný odor odér, pach run out of dojít, vypotřebov­at faint omdlít cot skládací lůžko stacked nacpaný, zaskládaný counselor poradce convention center kongresové centrum

 ?? FOTO REUTERS ??
FOTO REUTERS

Newspapers in Czech

Newspapers from Czechia