Many photos taken at Rio Grande detention centers cannot help shocking many when there are 51 immigrant women locked together in a prison that is reserved for 40 men, while 71 men were held in a room that was originally for 41 women. Many people are crammed into cells that have been allowed to stand for only a week, while many others have been locked in cramped cells for the past month.
One facility manager said that the situation was nothing more than a “time bomb”.
“We are deeply concerned about the overcrowding and the long detention period because it poses many health and safety risks to detainees, staff and officials” – inspectors said in the new report.
Inspectors, from the Office of the US Inspector General, visited seven detention centers located in the Rio Grande Valley, south of Texas. In many facilities, inspectors have found that up to 30% of children are detained longer than the allowed time of 72 hours. Some children are not served hot meals, do not have clean clothes to wear, and are not even allowed to use the bathroom.
Many detained immigrants intentionally threw socks and other objects around in toilets so they were clogged, and they were released from the cell while the toilet was repaired. The conditions of such detention go against the standards of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the report said. The inspectors also called on the Department of Homeland Security to take “urgent action to address this dangerous overload.”
According to CBP, the Rio Grande is the region that receives the largest number of illegal immigrants on the southwest border, up to now 250,000 people – an increase of 124% compared to 2018.
Last week, US lawmakers passed a bill aimed at spending $ 4.6 billion to tackle the immigration crisis at the border amid a wave of outrage over detention conditions in centers. The situation at these detention facilities “will shock the whole country,” said Democratic presidential candidate, Beto O’Rourke, after visiting one of the detention centers.