Mother says complaints went unheeded as five-year-old daughter suffered from diarrhea and fever at Berks County Residential Center in Pennsylvania

Five-year-old Briany nibbled her nails as she peeked from behind her mother. Her eyes rimmed with dark circles, she continued to ask if she could go out to play. Her mother, Gladis, shook her head.

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Briany is being treated for Shigellosis, a diarrheal disease caused by the Shigella group of bacteria, which according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is behind about 500,000 cases of diarrhea each year in the US. Briany lives with her mother as a detainee at the Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania.

Her case is a worrying one, which the Pennsylvania department of human services has reported to the US Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Briany’s condition, it is alleged, went untreated for weeks, exposing more than 40 other children of migrant mothers to a highly infectious disease.



As the US struggles to cope with the arrival of thousands of migrants from Central America, time spent at the federal facility in which Gladis and Briany are held suggests a problem born of institutional neglect and with troubling potential consequences.

The Berks County Residential Center was once a 96-bed nursing home. Converted in 2001, it now holds more than 80 migrants who have come to the US to escape gang violence, rape and economic despair.

The Berks facility’s license to operate expired on 21 February. Because the facility continues to hold adults despite being licensed only to hold children, the state chose not to renew the license. As the decision is under appeal, the facility can continue to operate.

Upon their arrival on American soil, such migrants surrender to Border Patrol agents. Typically, they are then sent to either the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, or the Karnes Family Residential Center in Kansas City. After three weeks, women with more complicated asylum cases are sent to Berks County.

Gladis and Briany were detained on 27 August 2015. They have been in Leesport since early September.

The detention center sits at the end of a short driveway. A small stone sign welcomes visitors; to the right of a parking lot, a playground sits empty. A soccer goal lies on its side.

After surrendering phones and electronic devices, attorneys and reporters enter the visitation room, which contains a round table surrounded by plastic chairs. The guards want to remain inside for interviews – protocol, the Guardian is told. In the event, they sit just outside. A noisemaker is available, however, and is requested.

When detainees enter the room, the door remains open. Mothers sit with their attorneys. Some children run to the windows. Others sit quietly, drawing.

Most of the women express anxiety about the guard who is listening, but relax when they realize he doesn’t speak Spanish. The women are candid. Their attorneys occasionally ask questions in Spanglish. After 20 minutes, a Spanish-speaking guard arrives. Gladis peers at her, repeatedly.



She lowers her voice and continues talking about her daughter. In late November, she says, Briany started to suffer from stomach cramps and diarrhea. Medical records provided to the Guardian show a diagnosis of pneumonia at St Joseph’s Hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania, and treatment with antibiotics at an in-house clinic.

In December, Briany’s doctors took lab specimens for a Shigella screening. It came out negative. On 14 December, an x-ray was taken, and it was recommended Briany stop eating dairy products. Gladis duly adjusted her daughter’s diet, she said, but the symptoms continued for three months.

Gladis said: “The doctors told me to talk to the kitchen staff. But there is no lactose-free milk. She just ate bananas and cereal.”

In a testimony about poor medical conditions written with 12 other women and sent to the Berks County administration in December, Gladis wrote: “My daughter has been sick for three weeks with diarrhea and a fever. She has not had any medication and I continue to take her to the medical office. I need medicine for her.

“Please help me. I am taking the opportunity to plea my deportation case because she needs to have the ability to leave. We have been detained for four months.”

In an email response, US Customs & Immigration Enforcement (ICE) wrote: “Thank you! You may dissolve your case at any time and return to your country. Please see the medical department in reference to health-related issues.”

‘I am concerned about transmission’

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It was only when a new physician’s assistant joined the Berks County Residential Center in early March, Gladis said, that her complaints were heeded. Berks staff received Briany’s new test results on 10 March. They showed a diagnosis of Shigella, which causes the symptoms she had by then had for four months.

In laboratory records, a physician stated: “I am concerned about transmission within the facility.”

There are more than 40 other children at the Berks center. Physicians’ notes in medical records confirm that other children were tested on 10 March. Briany was given antibiotics for the infection. All symptoms ceased.

Attorneys Carol Anne Donohoe and Bridget Cambria represent detainees at the facility, and have sent the medical records to the Pennsylvania department of human services and the office of the governor. They have had no response.

However, visitor logs acquired by the Guardian show that on the evening of 16 March 2016, three representatives of the Pennsylvania department of health and office of health services licensing attended the facility to investigate.

According to a detainee who preferred to remain unnamed, the head of the facility, Diane Edwards, had guards open the play area outside after dinner. The mothers and children were confused, since this would typically have been the time they prepared for bed.

The inspectors then met all of the mothers who had filed grievance forms in December. The detainee alleged that after the interviews, the inspectors left and guards cheered while slapping each other’s backs.

Children who had been in class with Briany were tested for the stomach infection. Officials told mothers those children had tested negative for Shigella. The women, however, say they have not been provided with medical records to verify this. According to Donahue, all have filed medical records requests in writing.

Repeated attempts to reach the inspectors named in the visitor log yielded no return calls. However, Kait Gillis, press secretary for the Pennsylvania health services department, confirmed that inspectors were at the facility on Wednesday 16 March.

In an emailed statement, Gillis said: “On Tuesday [15 March] DHS was made aware of one case of Shigella. Staff arrived at the facility on [16 March] to do an inspection.

“On site, there is health care staff from the US Public Health Service that confirmed a single case in a four-year-old. The child has received and completed antibiotic treatment. There were 18 others that had contact with the child who were tested for Shigella and tested negative.”

Two ICE press officials, Joshua Reid and Khaalid Walls, declined to speak about Briany’s case, despite a third-party privacy waiver having been signed by her mother. Citing strict privacy provisions regarding health records, they released this statement:

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“A Berks resident was diagnosed with Shigellosis in March 2016 and is receiving medical treatment. Out of an abundance of caution, ICE tested other residents who may have come in contact with the resident, all of whom tested negative for the disease. ICE is continuing to closely monitor the facility to ensure the health of those in our care.

“The center has consistently followed state regulated health guidelines as well as ICE family residential center policies, which have specific provisions for reporting infectious diseases to state and agency regulatory bodies. The facility recently underwent and passed a rigorous health inspection by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.”

On Sunday morning, Carol Anne Donohoe, the attorney, spoke to Gladis. Briany, she said, still had the Shigella bacteria when additional tests were taken this week.