Diarrhea was rampant, children were losing weight, and parents had to clean soiled clothing in sinks because guards would not provide them with clean items, mothers at an overcrowded Texas border facility in Laredo told Department of Homeland Security investigators last month, according to an internal report obtained by The Times.
The crisis at the Laredo facility is detailed in the first of two May memos by the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. The relatively new oversight office is charged with reviewing conditions within DHS' vast detention system. The memos, meant for agency leadership, include details on conditions in many facilities along the southern border this spring.
The second report, which was also obtained by The Times, describes alleged deficiencies in medical care at a detention facility in Donna, Texas, that held an 8-year-old Panamanian girl who later died in Border Patrol custody.
