In recent months, the United States has seen a spike in Central American migrants and asylum seekers. A large number of refugees are undergoing a humanitarian crisis due to a combination of violence, natural disasters, and pandemic-related economic strife, experts say. Furthermore, some have suggested that perceptions of a more lenient administration under Biden contributed to the crisis, despite the White House’s warnings against crossing the border.
Approximately 2,000 teenaged children are residing in tents at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, awaiting reunification with family members in the United States after crossing the US-Mexico border alone. The BBC’s investigation found allegations of sexual abuse, COVID and lice outbreaks, a child waiting hours for medical attention, a lack of clean clothes, and undercooked meat served to hungry children. BBC News has spoken to camp staff about these conditions and seen pictures and videos that staff smuggled out of the camp.
Camp conditions: how are they?
Approximately 12 tents are at Fort Bliss, some of which house hundreds of children simultaneously. Children spend most of their day in tents, getting out only for recreation or to line up for meals with hundreds of others. The BBC reported the food was mostly edible, but a 15-year-old who has now been released said he was given uncooked meat. ‘Even though the chicken sometimes had blood, the meat was very red. All we could do was eat it, but we got sick’. An employee prompted by camp policies asked to remain anonymous, ‘Hundreds of children have tested positive for COVID ‘. Since the camp opened in late March, outbreaks of the flu and strep throat have also been reported.
Children who require urgent medical attention have also been neglected. A BBC reporter secretly recorded the staff meeting in May in which one employee related the story of a child coughing up blood and needing urgent medical attention.’ Another staff member said ‘we are going to send him to lunch’, the employee reported. ‘I had to wait three and a half hours to see anyone’. The 15-year-old who spoke to the BBC was released last month after 38 days in detention. Upon arriving in the camp, he caught COVID -19 and became severely ill. As soon as he recovered, he was sent back to live in a crowded tent and fell ill again. ‘When we asked for medicine, they looked at us strangely, and they laughed among themselves,’ said the boy, who preferred to remain anonymous.
U.S. camps are full of filth, fear, and neglect.
According to an employee, lice have been rampant. A tent of around 800 girls was shut down last month because of lice. Staff members smuggled photos and videos out of the facility and gave them to the BBC, showing rows of flimsy bunks, spaced inches apart, extending in long lines through the tents.
‘We are literally covered in sand all over,’ said a female employee who spoke on condition of anonymity. ‘By the end of the day, we are all soaked from head to toe,’ the employee continued. BBC staff said that showers are available, but many children don’t want to use them since they don’t have clean clothes to change into. Underwear, other clothing items, and shoes are in short supply in the camp, according to employees.
Staff members describe it as heartbreaking to hear their stories and see them suffer and to hear about constant complaints about things that are easily fixed. Children say, ‘I just can’t stand it anymore. I’m leaving as soon as possible,’ they told a staff member. ‘They feel like they’re in prison’.
What do the authorities say?
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which employs private contractors to run the camp, says it is committed to transparency, but the BBC was not granted entry. In a public statement, HHS says it is ‘providing required standards of care for children such as clean and comfortable sleeping quarters, meals, toiletries, laundry, educational and recreational activities, and access to medicine in Fort Bliss’.
What are the reports of sexual abuse?
Staff members at Fort Bliss camp are reportedly sexually abusing children. One employee raised a concern during a camp training session, secretly recorded by a staff member and shared with the BBC. ‘We have already caught staff with minors inappropriately,’ she said. The BBC reported that another employee said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mentioned that there had been a rape. ‘They are giving the girls pregnancy tests,’ she added. ‘A contractor, you know, was captured doing things with him in a boys’ tent the other night’.
What state are the children in?
According to the staff at Fort Bliss, many of the children there are severely depressed and frequently self-harm. ‘I was scared that I would never get out, that I would not be able to see my family again’. The staff at Fort Bliss took risks to reveal the conditions in which children are being held. About 12,000 other children remain unaccounted for in the emergency HHS centers throughout the country.
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Why have so many children crossed the border alone?
US Customs and Border Patrol reports that over a million migrants have tried to enter the US this year – nearly twice as many as last year. Many adults have been deported due to a rule put in place under Trump. Under President Joe Biden, most children have been allowed to stay. Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are the main countries of origin for these children.
Approximately 80% of migrant children who end up in the US alone have relatives in the country, but the system does not quickly reunite them. A number of emergency camps were set up by HHS earlier this year, among them Fort Bliss, to ease overcrowding at facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Since the beginning of Biden’s administration in January, children have spent an average of 31 days in HHS camps.
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