The federal government today says it is relocating most of the 300 separated migrant children who were being housed at a Texas Border Patrol station in very dangerous conditions that amounted to child abuse.
The decision to move the child detainees follows an Associated Press report on the abusive conditions under which they were held.
Thirty children remain at the facility, AP reports.
BREAKING: Government moves more than 300 children out of Texas Border Patrol station after AP report of perilous conditions.
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 24, 2019
Government moves most of the children out of a Texas Border Patrol station after AP report that more than 300 children were held there in perilous conditions. Thirty children remain at the facility. https://t.co/SBvpipwDZj
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 24, 2019
From Monday afternoon’s AP report:
The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.
Just 30 children remained at the facility near El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection.
Attorneys who visited the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, last week said older children were trying to take care of infants and toddlers, The Associated Press first reported Thursday. They described a 4-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days, and hungry, inconsolable children struggling to soothe one another. Some had been locked for three weeks inside the facility, where 15 children were sick with the flu and another 10 were in medical quarantine.
“How is it possible that you both were unaware of the inhumane conditions for children, especially tender-age children at the Clint Station?” asked Escobar in a letter sent Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner John Sanders and U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost.
She asked to be informed by the end of this week what steps they’re taking to end “these humanitarian abuses.”
Border Patrol officials would not answer questions about the conditions at new facility where the children are being detained.
In an email to AP on Monday, they said: “Our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis.”
Although it’s unclear where all the children held at Clint have been moved, Escobar said some were sent to another facility on the north side of El Paso called Border Patrol Station 1. Escobar said it’s a temporary site with roll-out mattresses, showers, medical facilities and air conditioning.
Read the full AP story: Government moves migrant kids after AP exposes bad treatment
CPB: “Border Patrol Agents (BPA) assigned to El Paso Sector, El Paso Station (EPT/EPS) apprehended a group of approximately 127 illegal aliens.”
PHOTOS March 27, 2019, courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection: “U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to El Paso Sector, El Paso Station intercept a group of approximately 127 migrants. CBP Photographer Jaime Rodriguez Sr.”