An internal U.S. Government watchdog report has warned the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of “serious overcrowding and prolonged detention” in border facilities in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and has said the situation requires “immediate attention”.
The report, from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of DHS, addressed to DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan, was released on Tuesday and came a day after a group of Democratic lawmakers strongly criticised the conditions of Texas detention facilities.
The report, based on five site visits, says it had issued a management alert on overcrowding in May 2019 and this is the final management alert. It has also published photographs of overcrowded spaces, some with standing room only. The inspectors say 8,000 individuals were being held at the time of the visit and that 3,400 or almost half were held for more than 72 hours, against Customs and Border Protection (CBP) guidelines.
The report also says that roughly 30% of the unaccompanied children in the facilities visited had been detained for longer than 72 hours, and in three of the five facilities children had no access to showers.
Two facilities had not provided access to hot meals for children, until the week of the OIG visit.
The report says that while Border Patrol tried to hold children in as minimally restrictive circumstances as possible (such as by leaving room doors open), children who were in need of medical isolation were sometimes being held in cells.
Asking for help
One panel of photographs shows 51 adult females in a room with a maximum capacity for 40 male juveniles and another room with 71 adult males in a room with maximum capacity for 41 adult females. “…at one facility, some single adults were held in standing room only conditions for a week and at another, some single adults were held for more than a month in overcrowded cells,” the report says.
The photos of these spaces shows detainees with their faces pressed against the glass screen of the room. One detainee can be seen holding a placard that says “HELP” and “40 DAY” and what appears to be “HERE” written on it. Others are seen making signs for help.
One of the facility managers called the situation a “ticking time-bomb”, according to the report. Significantly, the report cautions of the dangers of overcrowding but mentions dangers to DHS agents first. “We are concerned that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of DHS agents and officers, and to those detained…” it says, listing security risks such as detainees refusing to re-enter their cells after cleaning.
“Border Patrol brought in its special operations team to demonstrate it was prepared to use force if necessary,” the report says.
The CBP plans to add a tent that will house single adults as part of its response to the situation, having already added two tents in the Rio Grande Valley, each capable of holding 500 people, the report says. Longer term housing is the responsibility of another DHS agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“This report is even more troubling after the discovery of the vile, crude comments made on social media by some of those in CBP responsible for caring for migrant families and children,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, referring to a ProPublica report from earlier this week on a Facebook group of past and current border agents that had made light on migrant deaths and shared racist and sexist memes about female members of Congress who made border facility site visits in Texas on Monday.
