Border Patrol Agents: ‘Migrant Misery Growing’
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Frustrated U.S. Border Patrol agents are risking their livelihoods to reveal what’s going on in illegal immigrant processing facilities, a major U.S. newspaper reported Tuesday.
The Epoch Times said family-unit holding cells smell like urine and vomit. “Fights break out in the unaccompanied-minor cells. Scabies, lice, the flu, and COVID-19 run rampant.”
Up to 80 individuals are squeezed into each 24- by 30-foot cell, and there aren’t enough mattresses for everyone. Sheets of plastic divide the rooms, according to witness accounts.
“Any diseases that are in there, it’s being kept in there, like a petri dish. The smell is overwhelming,” The Epoch Times quoted a Border Patrol agent as saying. He described the conditions in a facility in south Texas. The agent, Carlos (not his real name), spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity, for fear of repercussions.
The latest revelations came after U.S. President Joe Biden rushed to send top officials to Mexico and Central America to get a handle on the growing crisis at the border.
Photos seen by Worthy News showed migrants separated into groups by walls of plastic sheeting. Dozens of migrants lie on the floor, packed closely together inside a U.S. border processing center in Donna, Texas. The government-run tent Cory in Donna is reportedly holding some 1,000 people.
The photos were released on Monday and were provided to Reuters news agency by Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar, whose office said they were taken over the weekend.
In the facility mentioned by The Epoch Times, one or two agents are allegedly left to control 300 to 500 people during a shift. “No agent wants to report physical or sexual assaults between the aliens because they’ll get blamed for “letting it happen.” They’re also forced to separate a child from an extended family member because he or she is not a biological parent,” the paper wrote. The number of unaccompanied minors—children under 18 who arrive without a parent—is reportedly buckling the system.
U.S. legislation requires Border Patrol to prioritize unaccompanied minors and transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours. “We’re getting them out of here as quickly as possible, but we are so overwhelmed right now,” Carlos said. “It used to be easy to get them out in 72 hours. Not anymore. They’re staying here for 10, 12 days. It’s horrible.”
There has been a significant influx of arrivals to the US southern border since Biden took office. Among them, hundreds of unaccompanied children who are being held in U.S. immigration detention facilities.
Critics have linked the surge to Biden policies. Since January, the president ordered the reunification of migrant children with their families and ended the construction of previous President Donald J. Trump’s border wall. Biden also called for reviews of legal immigration programs terminated by the former president.
In one of the first significant challenges of his presidency, Biden officials say they are trying to contain the burgeoning humanitarian crisis along the southwest U.S. border with Mexico.
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