Immigrant children were described in first-hand accounts as hungry, abused, and fearful at border facilities.

The testimonies are part of a long-running lawsuit over the way the government treats detained immigrant children.

The Justice Department has defended conditions in the facilities, pointing to a recent government report declaring the conditions meet the proper standards.

A 13-year-old girl named Josselin remembers being so hungry it was "painful."

10-year-old Dixiana recalled being kicked awake by an officer. She said it hurt, though it didn't leave a bruise.

Keylin, 16, alleged that she and other girls were lined up, told to strip naked before female guards, then leered at before their showers.

Attorneys took declarations from hundreds of immigrant parents and children in recent months, as part of a long-running lawsuit, and documented dozens of allegations of deplorable and unhygienic conditions.

Many of the immigrants offered up strikingly similar descriptions of inedible food, undrinkable water, few opportunities to shower or clean themselves, overcrowding, freezing temperatures, and cruel or even abusive guards.

The court filing labeled the allegations "shocking and atrocious," chastising the government for housing children in such conditions.

"It amounts to a picture not just of forcibly separating thousands of children from their parents, but on a much broader level of a program of forced hunger, forced thirst, forced sleep deprivation, coupled with routine insults, threats, and physical assault, that leave class member children crying, trembling, hungry, thirsty, sleepless, sick, and terrified," Peter Schey, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, wrote.

"Mental health experts agree that many class members will never fully recover from the terror and humiliation they experienced in [government] custody," he added.

'The way I have been treated makes me feel like I don't matter, like I am trash'

In this photo provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, people who've been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, rest in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas, Sunday, June 17, 2018. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via Associated Press The children, in particular, struggled to cope with the conditions, especially absent their parents.

"I didn't cry the first day when I was at this facility, but I began crying all of the time on the second and third day because I missed my mother," said Dixiana, whose mother was being held in a different part of the facility. "The majority of the other girls in my cell were also crying the whole time I was there."

Dixiana described how one officer told her to stop crying, and that she would see her mother at 6 p.m. that day. But since the facility had no windows and the lights were constantly on, she had no way of knowing what time of day it was — and the officer refused to tell her.

One 17-year-old boy named Sergio said he was separated at the border from his father, who may now be deported.

"I do not want to be here anymore, especially since I know how much my father is suffering," Sergio said. "The way I have been treated makes me feel like I don't matter, like I am trash."

The allegations come as part of a decades-old lawsuit that was first filed in 1985 and culminated in 1997 with the Flores settlement, a legal agreement governing the way the federal government treats immigrant children in its custody.

The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law was behind the original lawsuit and organized a massive effort in recent months to interview hundreds of immigrant detainees about the conditions they experienced in border facilities.

The Justice Department and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) declined to comment on allegations laid out in the new court filings, but the department pointed Business Insider to a government report filed in June that declared CBP "continues to comply" with the Flores settlement.

The report was authored by CBP's Chief Accountability Officer Henry Moak, who made eight unannounced visits to the facilities in recent months and interviewed 38 children or parents who were in custody.

Moak said that the immigrants he interviewed said they were "provided access to food and water, functioning toilets and sinks, and held in hold rooms that were maintained within the appropriate [temperature] range. Though Moak said he did learn of instances where food was expired, "the CBP facilities quickly resolved these issues."