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Migrant Children In Detention Are Cold, Unwashed, And ‘Hungry All The Time’

Migrant Children In Detention Are Cold, Unwashed, And ‘Hungry All The Time’

A new court filing contains the desperate pleas for help from children locked up by the Trump administration in a detention center in Clint, Texas.

“I’m so hungry that I have woken up in the middle of the night with hunger,” one 12-year-old boy told lawyers. The boy said he was hungry “all the time,” and that he’s too scared to ask the guards for more food “even though there is not enough food here for me.”

Hunger isn’t the only issue children are dealing with.

“We are in a metal cage with 20 other teenagers with babies and young children,” a 16-year-old girl said. “It is very cold. We each got a mylar blanket, but it is not enough to warm up.”

In addition to hunger and cold, the hygienic conditions are unacceptable.

“I’ve been in the U.S. for six days and I have never been offered a shower or been able to brush my teeth,” a 16-year-old girl said. “There is no soap and our clothes are dirty. They have never been washed.”

The situation is especially dire for teenage girls with infants of their own.

“I have been told they do not have any clothes here at this place,” a 17-year-old mother said, unable to find clean clothes after her 3-month-old infant soiled what he was wearing. “I am having to make sure I carry my baby super close to keep his little body warm.”

An 18-year-old mother said that after her baby’s clothes got wet, “I had to take his pants off two days ago and I have not been able to get any pants for him.”

The statements from the children came out of site visits by lawyers and a doctor representing the children. After meeting with some of the children, Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier, a physician, compared their detainment to “torture facilities.”

“It just felt, you know, lawless. I mean, imagine your own children there. I can’t imagine my child being there and not being broken,” Lucio Sevier told ABC News.

After reports of the horrendous conditions came to light, most of the children were removed from the facility. But days later, 100 kids were returned there after a Trump official told reporters “I personally don’t believe these allegations.”

Trump has made cruelty to immigrants the central issue of his administration. As a result, children are freezing cold, hungry, and struggling to keep their own children warm enough to survive in a dirty detention center.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

Doctor Says Detention Centers For Migrant Children Resemble ‘Torture Facilities’

Doctor Says Detention Centers For Migrant Children Resemble ‘Torture Facilities’

The conditions at the Trump administration’s detention centers for immigrant children are so awful that one doctor compared them to “torture facilities,” according to an ABC News report.

Dolly Lucio Sevier, a board-certified physician, visited two so-called baby jails to check on the condition of hundreds of infants, toddlers, and children being detained. Lucio Sevier, along with lawyers representing the children, inspected one of the facilities after a flu outbreak sent five infants to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital.

All the children showed signs of trauma, Lucio Sevier concluded. When they arrived, they found children sleeping on cold concrete floors, bright lights shining 24 hours a day, and unsanitary conditions. For example, teens said they had no access to wash their hands, and mothers were not able to wash bottles for their infants.

“The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities,” Lucio Sevier wrote in a medical declaration. “To deny parents the ability to wash their infants’ bottles is unconscionable and could be considered intentional mental and emotional abuse.”

Lucio Sevier told ABC News that the conditions felt “worse than jail.”

 

“It just felt, you know, lawless. I mean, imagine your own children there. I can’t imagine my child being there and not being broken,” she said.

The youngest child in facilities Lucio Sevier visited was two and a half months old.

Lusio Sevier’s revelation follows allegations last week that the young detainees were being fed uncooked frozen food and forced to go weeks without a bath.

“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” Holly Cooper, an attorney representing detained youth, told the Associated Press. “Seeing our country at this crucible moment where we have forsaken children and failed to see them as human is hopefully a wake up for this country to move toward change.”

Trump officials are claiming that there is nothing wrong with these conditions. The administration recently argued in court that children don’t need basic necessities like soap, toothpaste, or a proper place to sleep.

Meanwhile, Trump is on television claiming that Latino voters love the fact that he ripped families apart and created baby jails through his family separation policy and that he’s threatening to round up and deport millions of people.

Trump has made immigration his signature issue, which has resulted in the federal government locking up minors in detention centers akin to “torture facilities.”

Published with permission of The American Independent.

IMAGE: US Border Patrol detention facility for migrant children in McAllen, Texas, via ABC News screenshot.