Report reveals improvements in US border facilities for migrant children, although not enough. Progress was detected in terms of hygiene, food and medical care.
The United States still separates some migrant children from their parents while holding them after crossing the border, despite extensive improvements at detention centers in Texas, according to the final report of a court-appointed monitor.
The increased scrutiny of Border Patrol detention facilities in Texas is part of broader court-ordered oversight that has been criticized by President-elect Donald Trump and his allies.
The report, issued Friday under a monitoring agreement that began in 2022, presents a final snapshot of conditions at the facilities ahead of Trump's return to office. The report noted improvements in hygiene, food and medical care, but found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents routinely separated children from their adult relatives during the time they were in custody. They remained in custody.
Unlike the separations that occurred under the zero-tolerance border policy during Trump's first term, those mentioned in the report were temporary and in them, Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not detain the adults while they were processed. nor were the children sent to shelters for minors.
At a facility in Donna, Texas, in September, officers “continued to routinely hold children separated from their parents or trusted adults,” the report states. By November, the monitor called regular visits between family members in the same facility “encouraging.” Workers at the facility said they could arrange tours because it was no longer overcrowded.
CBP did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
Several human rights advocates sued the Trump administration in 2019, citing reports from children in federal custody that described overcrowding at CBP facilities in Texas, as well as unsafe and unsanitary conditions. That year, nearly 70,000 migrant children were taken into federal custody, enough to exceed the capacity of a typical NFL stadium.
A 2022 court settlement created a temporary monitoring system that required CBP to provide adequate medical care and supervision. It also required keeping families together or allowing contact for those who were separated in custody.
Last week's report noted that health care improved in 2024, but also found reluctance to send sick children to a medical facility. In 2023, as CBP struggled with overcrowding, an 8-year-old girl with heart problems died while in custody in the Rio Grande Valley.
The monitoring agreement ends on January 29, 2025, more than a week after the start of Trump's second term. Leecia Welch, deputy director of litigation at Children's Rights, which represents children in CBP custody under the Flores settlement, expressed concern about what will happen to the children without oversight of the settlement.
“The report highlights the crucial role that independent monitors play in keeping children safe and shows that CBP is far from meeting its obligations, much less prepared for self-monitoring,” Welch said in a written statement.
Broad judicial oversight of the facilities began in 1997 under the so-called Flores settlement, a reference to Jenny Flores, a girl from El Salvador who sued the U.S. government in the 1980s. It was partially lifted in June, when the Department of Justice argued that the new safeguards would somehow exceed the standards of the Flores agreement.