Lawyers Had to Force the Border Patrol to Send 4 Sick Toddlers to the Hospital

By David Boddiger  |  June 22, 2019 | 5:18pm
Immigration

More and more horror stories are emerging about the abusive
conditions migrant children are being subjected to at U.S. Border Patrol facilities.
The latest news from McAllen, TX, is equally devastating, confirming once again
that the U.S. government is committing human rights abuses against migrant
children on a scale practically unimaginable a few years ago.

HuffPost reported Friday that lawyers had to intervene to force
officials to hospitalize four toddlers, all under 3 years old, who were so
sick that some refused to eat. One 2-year-old was “completely unresponsive” and
her eyes had rolled back in her head. All of the children were being held at
the Ursula processing center in McAllen.

The toddlers had fevers, coughs, diarrhea, and were
vomiting, the attorneys told the news site.

Per HuffPost:

The lawyers feared that if they had not shown up at the
facility, the sick kids would have received zero medical attention and
potentially died. The Trump administration has come under fire for its
treatment ― and its alleged neglect ― of migrants who have been
crossing the southern border in record numbers. The result is overcrowded
facilities, slow medical care and in some instances, deaths.

Attorney Toby Gialluca called the situation an “intentional
disregard for the well-being of children.” She added: “The guards continue to
dehumanize these people and treat them worse than we would treat animals.”

This is all awful. And had it not been for a group of
lawyers demanding to check on conditions at these processing centers, aka
concentration camps, the public wouldn’t know about any of this.

The lawyers have been conducting interviews with hundreds of
children at three Border Patrol locations in Texas. They were able to do this
because of a legal agreement called the Flores settlement, which outlines
mandated conditions for migrant children and families.

At a facility near El Paso, lawyers told the
Associated Press they found a 2-year-old locked in detention, girls as
young as 10 caring for a sick and underfed toddler, and a general lack of
adequate food, water, and sanitation.

Fifteen children under 12 have the flu at that location, and
10 others are quarantined.

About that toddler being cared for by other children:
Visiting lawyers were unable to determine who the boy even is. “A Border Patrol
agent came in our room with a 2-year-old boy and asked us, ‘Who wants to take
care of this little boy?’” one of the girls told the attorneys, according to
the AP.

One law professor said she saw an 8-year-old taking care of
a 4-year-old with matted hair.

“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention,
I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” Holly Cooper, co-director of
the University of California, Davis’ Immigration Law Clinic, told the AP.

This follows reporting that Trump administration attorneys
argued in federal court this week that they aren’t
required to provide basic necessities like soap, toothbrushes, and a warm
bed to migrant children who are detained after crossing the southern U.S.
border.

The government is appealing a 2017 ruling that conditions
for child migrants in detention violate the 1997 Flores settlement.

According
to Courthouse News, the panel of federal judges hearing the appeal this
week were incredulous after listening to arguments by Trump administration
attorneys.

“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the
agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described:
cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve
got an aluminum foil blanket?” U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher asked Justice
Department attorney Sarah Fabian. “I find that inconceivable that the
government would say that that is safe and sanitary.”

More from HuffPost:

Gialluca met one 16-year-old mother whose 8-month-old baby
was sick with the flu and forced to sleep outside for four days at the McAllen
Border Patrol station. The mother said the guards took the clothing off the
baby’s back, leaving her in a diaper, and forced them to sleep on concrete
without a blanket.
A sick 2-year-old girl was shivering in a T-shirt and had
shallow breathing, according to Mike Fassio, a Seattle-based immigration
attorney who visited Ursula.

Gialluca noted that they had only interviewed a small group
of the children, and in addition to the four hospitalized toddlers, she
believes many more children likely need hospitalization.

 
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