Some 600 immigrant families have been detained in recent weeks by the Border Patrol under the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission, Texas, and have had to
spend the night on land, with little access to food or medical care
, according to the Los Angeles newspaper. Times several of the asylum seekers after being released.
Among them are newborns and pregnant women who have had to sleep for days without a mattress and in the open.
Honduran Karen Coello, who arrived at the border with her 5-year-old daughter, said she remained under the border bridge for three days before being released to a local shelter.
"We asked them why we stayed there for so long," said Coello, 24, "all they answered was, 'That's your problem.'
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Another Honduran immigrant, Carla Montoya Sierra, 29, reported that she was not allowed to leave the bridge from Saturday to Monday night.
Montoja said she and her 6-year-old son were still wet after crossing the river on a raft when the agents left them under the bridge.
His fellow migrants, he said, lent them coats.
But when the temperature dropped at night, they caught a cold and started coughing.
Montoya assures that she asked the agents to help her, but they "said they were not obliged to do anything because it was our choice to come from our countries."
Immigration authorities deny that this is the norm, as the Administration chaired by Joe Biden faces increasing scrutiny over the conditions of the thousands of unaccompanied minors who have arrived at the southern border in recent weeks and have been admitted for processing. in United States.
A spokesman for the Border Patrol responded to the aforementioned newspaper about complaints from migrants who have spent days sleeping under the Anzalduas International Bridge:
"No one should be there for more than 24 hours.
We really don't want them to spend the night there."
Migrants under the Anzalduas International Bridge, in Granjeno, Texas.
REUTERS
The spokesperson said shelters are sometimes closed and suggested that in the meantime the officers have no other place to house the families.
"Our goal is to get them out every day when night comes," he said.
He added that the site under the border bridge was created so that agents can easily expel eligible migrants to Mexico.
Children unaccompanied by adults are not brought there, he said.
The government has admitted that the situation at the border poses a challenge, but has refused to describe as a "crisis" the fact that as of this week there are more than 17,000 children in custody, many in overcrowded conditions.
Night falls on the Anzalduas International Bridge in Texas, where a group of migrants awaits in Border Patrol custody.
REUTERS
The Biden Administration has tried for weeks to prevent the public from seeing images like the ones that emerged Monday from the detention center in Donna, Texas, showing immigrant children in custody at the border sleeping on mats under aluminum blankets, separated into groups. by plastic partitions.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, has recognized the seriousness of the problem and the deficiencies of the immigration system to accommodate the growing flow, but has insisted that it is under control and that he will not revive the Trump-era practice of immediately expelling adolescents. and children to their countries of origin.
In his first press conference since taking office, Joe Biden stressed this Thursday that he is negotiating with the Government of Mexico to receive all migrant families who arrive at the border, except unaccompanied minors, many of whom count with relatives or sponsors in the United States.
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"Mexico is refusing to receive [the families] back. They are saying that they will not receive them. Not all of them. We are negotiating with the president," he said.
"I think we are going to see a change. Everyone should be able to return. And the only people that we are not going to leave sitting on the other side of the Rio Grande without help are the children," he added.
The president, who has consistently promised to offer migrants "humane" treatment, blamed the Donald Trump Administration for "dismantling all the elements" that made it possible to deal with the arrival of migrants.
Specifically, he said that his Republican predecessor cut the capacity of beds at the border and reduced funds to the Department of Homeland Security, which is leading to a longer stay of migrants in custody.
"What we are doing now is trying to rebuild the system so that we can be able to respond to what is happening today," he concluded.
With information from the Los Angeles Times
