Border Patrol has been holding asylum-seeking families — whom the agency is trying to deport to Guatemala — at a Texas border facility for at least 11 days, violating a court settlement and 2008 law, attorneys said.

Under federal law and court orders, children can't be detained by Border Patrol for more than 72 hours. Lawyers trying to represent two families said they have also been denied access to them because officials said the temporary tent facilities in Donna, Texas, can't accommodate attorney visits.

David Dubrow, an attorney with Arent Fox LLP who has been trying to get access to a Honduran family, said every immigrant child held by border authorities should be released after 72 hours, barring extraordinary circumstances.

"Which I doubt there are," Dubrow told BuzzFeed News. "Children shouldn't be held this long. And the reason the government violates the law consistently on this is when you have a child with a parent, if they release them, they have to release the parent as well."

Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the two families without identifying information; lawyers said the families are not comfortable with CBP receiving identifying details about their cases.



The Honduran family Dubrow is working with — a mother and her two daughters aged 6 and 1 — have been detained by CBP since Dec. 30. The youngest, attorneys said, is extremely ill and has diarrhea. They have been trying to get her to a local hospital for treatment.



It's unlikely these two families will be released into the US to await an immigration court hearing. The families are expected to be deported from the southern border to Guatemala, under a "safe third country" deal the Trump administration made to send asylum-seekers to the Central American country instead. One of the few ways people can be exempted from the program is if they can prove to an asylum officer that they'd "more likely than not" be persecuted or tortured in Guatemala, a high threshold to meet.

However, according to guidance sent to asylum officers on the program's implementation, immigrants are not entitled to a lawyer during the interview. Even so, Dubrow said, attorneys are trying to get into the tent facilities to try to represent them.

"The children have a right to counsel," Dubrow said. "It's such a sinister plot. And what's going to happen to them if they're sent to Guatemala? This is nuts considering all the problems in Guatemala."