U.S. – Mexico border migrants overwhelm border patrol facilities

Reports from the U.S. – Mexico Border Patrol facilities on Thursday, 28th March, 2019 stated that they are currently overwhelmed by the numbers of migrants crossing the border. Reports have it that hundreds of migrant families are been held at El Paso, Texas.

According to a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, Ramiro Cordero, migrants crossing the border illegally are held in metropolitan El Paso as they wait to be processed at a nearby Border Patrol station.

When asked, Ramiro Cordero stated that the duration which migrants spent at the facility which was set up late last month below the city’s Paso del Norte International Bridge to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, depends on how many migrants cross the border.

According to him, “It could be a couple of hours, it could be more than that, it could be overnight, I can’t tell you, it’s just too many people for me to tell you an exact time or time frame.”

The Border Patrol Agent stated that on a daily basis, an average of 570 people cross the border and are been handled at the facility, a figure which he referred to as the highest rate in the past ten years.

Reports have it that migrants at the facility are given thermal blankets and can get shelter, food, water and a medical evaluation. One of the reports in asserting the condition which people are kept in the facility stated that children were seen sleeping outside in the enclosed area at very a very low temperature of around 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). This condition was described by legal coordinator for El Paso migrant shelter Annunciation House, Taylor Levy as an inhumane and inexcusable way to treat people.

According to Taylor Levy, She said that some of the migrants inside the facility told her that they had been there for between one and four days. She also report to have seen toddlers sleeping on the dirt and gravel beneath the bridge in the facility.

A report credited to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday 27th March, 2019 in a press briefing indicated that the agency is planning to set up temporary buildings to house migrant families, before a planned $192 million processing facility is built.  These temporary buildings as at the point of this report have not been built.

Kevin McAleenan narrated that more than 1,000 migrants were arrested in the El Paso sector on Monday, 25th March, 2019 bringing the total number in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody – including the enclosure – to almost 3,500 on Wednesday, 27th March, 2019. The migrants are in facilities built for far fewer people and designed for single adults who once formed the bulk of arrests.

Kevin McAleenan stated that the situation is now worsen as families and children now form the majority of apprehensions across the Southwest border, with a record 55,000 family units apprehended or encountered in March, 2019.

According to the director of El Paso’s Hope Border Institute, Dylan Corbett, El Paso migrant shelters are receiving around 700 people a day from immigration authorities, compared with a previous high of 2,000 a week in late 2018. Dylan Corbett expressed worries about the situation by saying, “It’s not sustainable right now, that’s why everyone is really nervous, because this just can’t last.”

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