The Biden administration released official images and videos Tuesday from inside two crowded Texas detention centers at the southern border, ABC News has reported.
The Biden administration has yet to call the recent surge in unaccompanied minors at the border a “crisis.”
The images were shot last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials and expose living conditions inside of a processing facility in El Paso, Texas and a holding facility in Donna, Texas. The Biden administration has refused to allow the media inside of the facilities.
The 3-minute video shows where unaccompanied children and migrants are being held before they are transferred to other federal agencies. Up to 4,000 people, many of them children, sleep on floors with aluminum blankets inside the tented facility on the southern border. Only 250 people are meant to be held in the facilities.
ABC News Chief White House Corespondent Cecilia Vega described the facilities as “severely overcrowded, jail-like places, not meant for kids.”
A photo taken inside of the facility in Donna shows young children inside of a playpen, being watched over by a caretaker.
Another video shows children packed into enclosures and sleeping on mats on floors.
The White House has said they are working as quickly as possible to move the children into shelters and homes. And they have expressed concern over the spread of COVID-19.
Vega said most of the children are being held in the facilities much longer than the three days they’re legally allowed to be held. From the facilities, the children will most likely go into a foster system or another shelter, but it could take more than a month to reunite the children with their families.
5,000 unaccompanied children are in Border Patrol custody, and an additional 10,500 are in the care of Health and Human Services, according to an HHS official and a document obtained by ABC News.
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