IRAP, Sept. 19, 2024 "Today, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) released a new report detailing the U.S. government’s practice of interdicting refugee families at sea and...
Center for Constitutional Rights, Sept. 16, 2024 "Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and the Center for Constitutional Rights submitted a petition...
Nancy Guan, WUSF, Sept. 19, 2024 "Maria and her family arrived in the U.S. in December of 2021 — the tail end of a year where encounters at the southern border reached record highs. Many of...
Human Rights Watch, Sept. 18, 2024 "Dear President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas and Secretary Blinken, We, the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil society , and faith-based organizations...
EOIR, Sept. 16, 2024 "The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) invites interested stakeholders to participate in its live Model Hearing Program (MHP) event on Sept. 30, 2024. The event...
Abby Vesoulis, Time Magazine, May 31, 2019
"The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found an El Paso Border Patrol processing center was so overcrowded that detainees were wearing “soiled clothing for days or weeks” and standing on toilets “to make room and gain breathing space.”
While visiting five Border Patrol facilities and two ports of entry the week of May 6, the watchdog group “observed dangerous overcrowding” at the El Paso Del Norte Processing Center “with single adults held in cells designed for one-fifth as many detainees,” according to a report made public Friday.
Although the report indicates the maximum capacity at the facility is 125 detainees, it cites custody logs indicating roughly 750-900 detainees were being held at the processing center the week of the inspection. “Border Patrol agents told us some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks,” the report says.
Because some detainees were standing on toilets, the report says, access to the toilets themselves was limited."