Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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US Moves Hundreds of Children from Suspect Detention Facility

Victoria Macchi

   WASHINGTON - Several hundred children, held in a U.S. border detention
   facility in Texas after entering the country without authorization,
   will be sheltered elsewhere, following a media report last week that
   described unsanitary living conditions and inadequate food and medical
   treatment at the facility.

   The Associated Press reported Monday that authorities moved "more than
   300 children" out of a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, following
   a June 20 story by the news agency.

   Lawyers who visited the remote station said that older children were
   caring for other children, sanitation conditions were substandard, and
   children were sick, living in soiled clothes and being given rotten
   food, [1]according to the AP.

   VOA requested comment from the two government agencies involved in
   housing children who cross the border without authorization, or without
   a guardian -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of
   Refugee Resettlement, within the Department of Health and Human
   Services. Neither office responded as of Monday afternoon.

   [2]A June report by the Office of the Inspector General, the internal
   watchdog at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, found cleanliness
   and sanitation problems during an inspection of four detention
   facilities.

   Asked about the allegations of poor standards for detained children,
   U.S. President Donald Trump did not address the AP report in a TV
   interview aired on Sunday on NBC's [3]"Meet the Press" show. Instead,
   he laid responsibility -- erroneously -- on his predecessor, President
   Barack Obama, for the creation of what became known under Trump as the
   "family separation" policy.

   As researchers from the Bipartisan Policy Center explained [4]in a 2018
   report, previous administrations relied more heavily on family
   detention facilities or alternatives to detention, like the use of
   monitoring devices.

   Parents and children were separated under Obama in limited
   circumstances, such as cases where child trafficking was suspected.

References

   1. https://www.voanews.com/usa/lawmakers-alarmed-state-federal-lockups-migrant-kids
   2. https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-06/OIG-19-47-Jun19.pdf
   3. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/president-trump-s-full-unedited-interview-meet-press-n1020731
   4. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/why-are-families-being-separated-at-the-border-an-explainer/

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