Washington sources reported that Lawyers given access by a judge said the children which had been held for weeks were “severely neglected”. One of them told the BBC that children were “locked up in horrific cells where there’s an open toilet in the middle of the room” where they ate and slept. The separation of migrant children from their parents began in 2018 under a new “zero tolerance” policy from President Donald Trump’s administration. It saw nearly 3,000 children separated before it was suspended.
Under the policy, announced in May 2018, those who cross the border illegally were to be prosecuted which required their children to be taken into care. The border patrol in Texas reported the deaths of seven migrants this week who had apparently attempted to circumvent the immigration system including two babies and a toddler.
Several hundred of the children had been kept in a warehouse that was recently erected on the facility grounds. Elora Mukherjee, another lawyer who visited the facility, said: “They were wearing the same dirty clothing they crossed the border with. It is degrading and inhumane and shouldn’t be happening in America.”
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