Federal Judge Orders CBP to Allow Doctors Into Child Migrant Detention Centers

What’s the story?

• A federal judge has ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to permit doctors and health professionals into detention facilities housing migrant children to ensure they’re “safe and sanitary” and their medical needs are being met.

• Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California ordered that health professionals be allowed access to all of CBP's facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors in Texas, which are the subject of a lawsuit amidst reports of unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Five migrant children have died in Border Patrol custody since December.
• Last week, a group of lawyers filed a temporary restraining order with Gee to hold the Trump administration in contempt. The lawyers said the conditions in the Texas facilities violate the Flores agreement, which require “safe and sanitary” conditions for children being detained.

“Children are held for weeks in deplorable conditions, without access to soap, clean water, showers, clean clothing, toilets, toothbrushes, adequate nutrition or adequate sleep,” the court filing stated. “The children, including infants and expectant mothers, are dirty, cold, hungry and sleep-deprived.”

• In a recent hearing, Department of Justice senior litigation counsel Sarah Fabian argued that Flores failed to provide specifics as to what items must be provided to detained children to ensure “safe and sanitary” conditions are met, and may not include a toothbrush, soap, and non-concrete sleeping area.

“One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian said.

• Gee set a deadline of July 12 for the parties to “file a joint status report regarding their mediation efforts and what has been done to address post haste the conditions described.”
• CBP has not responded to requests for comment from multiple news outlets.

What do you think?

Should doctors be allowed into child migrant detention centers? Are child detention centers necessary for an effective immigration policy? Take action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman 

(Photo Credit: Screen Capture from video of detention centers)