Detaining kids is bad. Don’t take my word for it; listen to the doctors: “Even brief detention can cause psychological trauma and induce long-term mental health risks for children,” wrote the American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2017 policy statement on the treatment of immigrant minors. Or, if you prefer, take heed of a federal advisory committee on family detention that wrote in 2016: “Detention or the separation of families … are never in the best interest of children.” It’s a bad thing; we shouldn’t do it.
Still, there’s a hierarchy of badness at play—a ladder that leads only eventually to the pit of Clint, Texas, and the nightmarish conditions attorneys witnessed at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holding facility there last month: outbreaks of scabies, shingles, and chickenpox; children in soiled, reeking clothes; a lice infestation; chronic hunger and exhaustion; kids as young as 8 caring for toddlers. To get to Clint—or the former tent city 15 miles south in Tornillo, or the sprawling for-profit facility in Homestead, Florida, both of which have also made headlines for substandard conditions—a number of rules and protections already written into law must be shunted aside in the name of expediency, cruelty, or ostensible necessity. That’s how our system can go from harsh to horrendous.
The United States’ system of protections for migrant children comes primarily from the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and the so-called Flores agreement, a 22-year-old court settlement between the federal government and human rights attorneys. Current law generally requires that migrant kids who arrive at the border alone or with family spend no longer than 72 hours in CBP holding facilities. And there’s a damn good reason for that. Known in Spanish as hieleras (ice boxes) or perreras (kennels), these facilities were built for single adults, and they’ve long been notorious for cold temperatures, inedible food, and a lack of basic hygiene products.
