After mounting pressure to provide media access to the border facilities where unaccompanied migrant children are being kept, the Biden administration finally caved and has allowed the media in.
And they found the same deplorable conditions that had been previously leaked.
Nicole Sganga, homeland security & justice reporter for CBS News, revealed what she and others saw at the migrant facility in Donna, Texas, which is significantly over capacity.
“The Biden admin allowed pooled coverage for the first time. We saw a ‘pod’ designed for 32 migrant children under CDC guidelines now holding 615. The facility is at 1700% pandemic capacity,” Sganga tweeted. The facility, which was designed to hold 250 people, would normally cost $6 million a month for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to operate, but now costs taxpayers $16 million a month because it is so overcrowded.
“Unaccompanied migrant children ages 4 months – 9 years old are now being held in the recreational area around the clock because there’s no just room for them in the dormitory areas,” she said in a follow-up tweet.
“More than 2000 migrants at the temporary processing facility in Donna, TX have been here for over the legal limit of 72 hours,” she continued. “Senior CBP officials told reporters more than 1200 migrants are processed and waiting to be transferred to HHS facilities. HHS has nowhere to put them.”
She added, “At least 39 unaccompanied migrant children have been in the temporary processing facility for more than 15 DAYS, Acting Executive Officer for RGV Operational Programs Division, Oscar Escamilla, told reporters. The legal limit is 72 hours.”
Sganga says that according to Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, CBP agents are seeing “self-separation” of families that are released back into Mexico, with children re-crossing the border without parents so that they can seek asylum in the United States.
THREAD — Reporters toured the temporary border facility in Donna, TX today.
The Biden admin allowed pooled coverage for the first time.
We saw a “pod” designed for 32 migrant children under CDC guidelines now holding 615.
The facility is at 1700% pandemic capacity.
📸:TV Pool pic.twitter.com/cJTPUAxXmc
— Nicole Sganga (@NicoleSganga) March 30, 2021
The lack of bed space in HHS-operated facilities has resulted in a record-high backlog of unaccompanied kids at Border Patrol facilities, Sganga explained in a follow-up report at CBS News. “As of Tuesday morning, Border Patrol was holding more than 5,100 unaccompanied minors.”
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter, Gab, Facebook, MeWe, Heroes, Rumble, and CloutHub.
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