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Children crammed into a large box with transparent plastic walls.
They lie on floor mats, foils are supposed to provide warmth.
More than 2000 children and adolescents were recently detained for longer than the legally permitted time of 72 hours in the Donna reception camp in Texas on the US border.
O-Ton Oscar Escamilla US border agency “These children cross the river by themselves. Obviously, the parents pay a fee to the smuggler, the cartel member or the smuggler brings the child over, brings him to the river, puts him in a raft and says: 'OK, let's go.' When they get to the other bank, explain to them that there will be a border guard there. They will explain to them what we are wearing and tell them, "Face them."
Every day, more than 500 minors end up unaccompanied in reception camps on the border between the USA and Mexico.
Despite the pandemic, it is hardly possible to keep your distance in the overcrowded accommodations.
Most of the children and young people come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
O-Ton Oscar Escamilla US border agency
“I spoke to one of the little girls about a month and a half ago, and I told the Congress delegation that too. We wanted to send her to the hospital. As I got closer to her, I noticed that she couldn't speak. I asked the medical staff what happened. She got gangrene. And the reason she couldn't speak was because she lost her voice while she was raped. That hit me very much. "
Around 4,100 people are currently at the facility in Donna.
In total, US border officials expect more than a million refugees to arrive at the US-Mexico border.
According to the Biden government, the main aim is to get children and young people out of the overcrowded border facilities as quickly as possible and bring them together with relatives.
However, this is often difficult.
O-Ton Oscar Escamilla US border agency
“Some children will tell you their different stories. They will tell you that they no longer have their parents. There is a little girl I spoke to a while ago. She said that she lost her mother and that she has no father. So she comes to this country because her uncle will be the godfather. This little girl is going to the states. And I asked her, "What state are you going to? What's your final destination?" She said, "I don't know. I only know that it is snowing there. That is everything I know."
If US President Joe Biden fails to curb the influx at the border, the situation in the camps will increasingly turn into a humanitarian catastrophe - and increasingly into a serious political crisis.
