CBP’s acting commissioner blames rising number of deaths of child migrants in US detention on a lack of federal funding

More children may die in the detention of the US government unless Congress passes a $4.6bn emergency fund for immigration services at the US-Mexico border, the head of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has warned.

John Sanders, CBP’s acting commissioner, blamed the rising number of deaths of child migrants in US detention on a lack of federal funding to care for them, in an interview with the Associated Press.

Teenage migrant mother and premature baby 'held without proper care' in Texas Read more

Referring to the death last month of Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, a 16-year-old from Guatemala who contracted the flu but was kept on a concrete bench in a cell, the border patrol chief said: “The death of a child is always a terrible thing, but here is a situation where, because there is not enough funding … they can’t move the people out of our custody.”

At least seven migrant children have died in US custody since late 2018, as a combination of policies spearheaded by Donald Trump as part of his much-vaunted immigration crackdown have led to scenes of chaos and meltdown at the border. Children and families are being held for days longer than the 72 hours allotted in grossly overcrowded facilities in which medical provisions are scanty at best.

Outcry erupted this week after a migrant teen was found to be nursing her premature baby in a Texas border patrol facility without proper neonatal care. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas criticized Trump for showing disregard for families with children, saying “no human being should be held in the overcrowded and deplorable conditions that plague CBP holding facilities”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tents at a temporary holding facility for migrants that has been in use since early May in El Paso, Texas. Photograph: Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images

Despite the growing evidence of extreme conditions and hardship at US border facilities, Trump appears to have no concerns and has vowed to step up the chaos.

On Monday, he tweeted that agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would next week begin a mass roundup of “millions” of undocumented families including children – a move that could only increase pressure on overwhelmed federal services.

Trump has heaped all responsibility for the crunch on his Democratic opponents in Congress, for their resistance to his demands for funding for his determined efforts to build a border wall. But all indications suggest that the president’s crackdown has been self-defeating – the number of families with children turning up at the US border largely from Central America has shot up, in direct proportion to Trump’s threats.

Last month CBP arrested more people at the US border than at any time since 2007. There were 132,887 arrests in May, of whom 11,507 were children traveling on their own.

At the time of Carlos’ death, CBP was detaining about 2,500 children, Sanders told AP. That was out of a total of 15,000 migrant detainees – almost four times the federal agency’s capacity.

As the wrangling continues, experts on childhood trauma are becoming increasingly alarmed about the effect that prolonged detention in ill-equipped and overcrowded facilities will have on thousands of child migrants.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Migrants wait to be taken to a processing facility in El Paso, Texas in May. Photograph: Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images

They arrive at the border already often weak and traumatised, having fled gang violence and other extreme conditions in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras before making the long and perilous journey north.

Last week, the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights reported that Trump’s immigration stance was compounding the children’s trauma. “Children are being met at the US border with harsh, punitive policies that both violate their rights and severely affect their wellbeing,” the group said.

The emergency funding that CBP is requesting must pass a vote of both the US Senate and House by next week, when lawmakers begin their summer break. The package contains $2.9bn to care for unaccompanied migrant children in border facilities, and a further $1.3bn for adults.

If the package passes, some of the money is likely to go towards funding the creation of new holding facilities in tents. CBP already has a 500-person tent full to overflowing near the Rio Bravo in Texas and is building second in Donna, Texas.