The Department of Homeland Security said Monday they transferred approximately 300 children out of a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, following a shocking Associated Press report last week that sparked widespread outrage. Lawyers who visited the facility found children of all ages locked up without adequate food, water, sanitation or medical care, with older children having to care for the younger ones. Clara Long of Human Rights Watch, who interviewed children at the facility, recounted a distraught child wearing a bracelet with the words “US parent” and a phone number, but found that her parents had no idea where she was or the conditions she was being held in.
Some of the children were reportedly moved into a shelter overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, while others are now being held in a tent facility in El Paso. Around 30 children remain at the Border Patrol station in Clint, according to the office of El Paso Congressmember Veronica Escobar. The station is not designed to hold children for more than a few days, but many have been there now for nearly a month. Click here to see our interview with Warren Binford, a lawyer who interviewed children at the Clint, Texas, facility.