Hundreds Of Detained Immigrant Children Moved Following Disturbing Reports Of Inhumane, Unsanitary Conditions

The Associated Press: Government Moves Migrant Kids After AP Exposes Bad Treatment
The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation. Just 30 children remained at the facility near El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection. (Mendoza and Burke, 6/24)

The New York Times: Hundreds Of Migrant Children Are Moved Out Of An Overcrowded Border Station
Though the station had held a relatively small population of migrants, compared to the tens of thousands who have been crossing the border each month, the lawyers’ accounts offered a rare view into a system that has largely been hidden from public view. Other examples of facilities with poor conditions have trickled out in recent months through reports published by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, as well as from other lawyers who have occasionally been allowed in. Access to the facilities has been largely restricted, however, even as federal authorities have declared that the number of migrants on the border has escalated beyond their ability to safely handle. (Dickerson, 6/24)

USA Today: Texas Border Patrol Facility Releases Children From Detention
There were about 255 children being held in what lawyers described as neglectful conditions during a visit Thursday to the station in Clint, Texas. U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said Monday that all but 30 of the children had been moved from the station in a farming community east of El Paso. A lawyer who had visited the station told Escobar that older children were having to care for younger children, some had been held for nearly a month and some children had not been allowed to contact family members. (Borunda, 6/24)

Reuters: U.S. Relocates Hundreds Of Migrant Children From Overcrowded Border Station
Just 30 children remained at the facility near El Paso on Monday, according to Elizabeth Lopez-Sandoval, spokeswoman for Representative Veronica Escobar. Children not sent to the HHS shelters were being moved to a tent facility designed for family detention, Lopez-Sandoval said. U.S. law requires children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian to stay in border patrol's short-term holding facilities for no longer than 72 hours and to be moved to HHS shelters as quickly as possible. (Cooke and Chavez, 6/24)

Texas Tribune: Migrant Children Moved After Unsafe Conditions Reported At Border Facility
"It's not necessarily a better situation, and in fact could be worse," said Warren Binford, a lawyer who visited Clint last week. "Where these really children need to go is back to their families." Several attorneys who visited the station said they found at least 15 children sick with the flu, some of whom were being kept in medical quarantine. They described seeing a sick and diaperless 2-year-old boy whose “shirt was smeared in mucus.” Three girls ages 10 to 15 were taking turns watching him. (Roldan, 6/24)

NBC News: Almost 300 Migrant Children Removed From Texas Facility Described As 'Appalling'
The children who were removed were being held at a border station in Clint, Texas. Some were wearing dirty clothes covered in mucus or even urine, said Elora Mukherjee, the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. Teenage mothers wore clothing stained with breast milk. None of the children had access to soap or toothpaste, she said. “Almost every child I spoke with had not showered or bathed since they crossed the border — some of them more than three weeks ago,” she said. “There is a stench that emanates from some of the children because they haven’t had an opportunity to put on clean clothes and to take a shower.” (Silva, 6/24)

PBS NewsHour: Hundreds Of Migrant Children Transferred From Texas Facility With ‘Inhumane’ Conditions
During the interview, Binford said a 7-year-old girl sat at the other end of the room, crying and looking over at them. The teenager asked the girl if she wanted to come closer, which she did, sliding into the teenager’s arms with the other child. “They have no one else,” Binford said the teen had told her. “Children cannot take care of children, and yet that’s how they are trying to run this facility,” Binford added. (Brangham, 6/24)

USA Today: Alex Azar Says Rhetoric About Migrant Detention Is 'Outrageous'
Controversy has swirled around the Trump administration's treatment of migrants in detention, following Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's accusation that the Trump administration was running "concentration camps" on the border. Alex Azar, who runs the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that oversees the care of unaccompanied migrant children after they are released from Border Patrol, discussed the issue on Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime" on Monday afternoon, saying that the way migrant detention had been discussed was "outrageous."  (Wu, 6/24)

Bloomberg: Azar Says U.S. Is Running Out Of Money To Shelter Migrant Kids 
The U.S. government may run out of money in July to shelter migrant children apprehended as they cross the southern border with Mexico, said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “We are full,” he told reporters after a meeting at the White House on Monday. “We do not have capacity for more of these unaccompanied children to come across the border.” “At some point in early July we are probably going to be out of money,” Azar said. “This isn’t political; this isn’t about immigration.” (Pettypiece, 6/24)

The New York Times: Emergency Aid For Migrants Badly Divides Democrats
Congress is trying to rush $4.5 billion in emergency humanitarian aid to the southwestern border while placing new restrictions on President Trump’s immigration crackdown, spurred on by disturbing images of suffering migrant families and of children living in squalor in overcrowded detention facilities. But with a House vote on the package planned for Tuesday, some Democrats are revolting over the measure, fearing that the aid will be used to carry out Mr. Trump’s aggressive tactics, including deportation raids that he has promised will begin within two weeks. (Davis, 6/24)

The Washington Post: Liberals Angry With Trump Administration Treatment Of Migrant Children Force House Leaders To Amend Border Bill
Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) emerged Monday from a nearly two-hour meeting involving members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — two groups that had expressed concerns about delivering additional funding to the Trump administration — and said a vote would proceed on Tuesday. ... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the meeting after news of poor conditions at U.S. Customs and Border Protection centers and President Trump’s threat of mass deportations cast doubt on whether Congress would be able to pass a border funding package before lawmakers leave Washington on Thursday for a week-long recess. (DeBonis and Bade, 6/24)

CNN: House Dems To Consider Potential Changes To Border Bill After 'Very Tense' Meeting
According to a senior Democratic aide, Pelosi expressed a desire to review those proposals, which would be incorporated into the spending bill that's set for a vote on the floor Tuesday. Internal division among House Democrats erupted during a meeting Monday night. Pelosi held a late night, two-and-a-half hour meeting in her office that one member described as "very tense" with "high decibel levels." (Killough and Raju, 6/24)

The Hill: Pelosi, Democratic Leaders Seek To Quell Liberal Revolt Over Border Bill
In short, the liberals simply don't trust the administration to treat the migrants humanely, even if Congress approves ample funding for their care. They want the bill to include — or be accompanied by — a new set of behavioral standards governing the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). (Marcos and Lillis, 6/24)

The Associated Press: 4 Border Deaths In Texas Could Be A Preview Of The Summer
Two babies, a toddler and a woman were found dead near the U.S.-Mexican border, overcome by the sweltering heat in a glimpse of what could lie ahead this summer as record numbers of migrant families try to get into the United States. Authorities believe the four may have been dead for days before the bodies were discovered on Sunday in the Rio Grande Valley. No details were released on the victims' relationship. (Warren and Attanasio, 6/24)

Texas Tribune: Border Patrol Finds Three Children, One Woman Dead At South Texas Border
The four bodies were found southeast of Anzalduas Park in the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area of Mission, Texas. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the Rio Grande Valley area accounts for more than 40% of undocumented immigrant apprehensions and is "the busiest sector in the nation." The deaths follow a surge of unauthorized migration to the U.S. last month, when more than 144,000 people were apprehended or deemed inadmissible to the country — the largest number in 13 years. (Closson, 6/24)

Texas Tribune: Border Patrol Turning Away Diaper And Toy Donations
On Sunday, Austin Savage and five of his friends huddled into an SUV and went to an El Paso Target, loading up on diapers, wipes, soaps and toys. About $340 later, the group headed to a Border Patrol facility holding migrant children in nearby Clint with the goal of donating their goods. Savage said he and his friends had read an article from The New York Times detailing chaos, sickness and filth in the overcrowded facility, and they wanted to help. (Samuels, 6/24)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hundreds Protest Trump Immigration Policies In Milwaukee
Hundreds of members of faith-based organizations marched Monday outside the Milwaukee office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to protest against the immigration policies of President Donald Trump's administration. Holding signs and banners that read "Classrooms, not cages," "Abolish ICE" or "Keep families together," protesters walked and chanted on the sidewalks outside the building. (Perez, 6/24)