Recent reports by two non-profit organizations that offer free legal services to migrants have once again cast a dark shadow on the conditions children face while in Border Patrol custody. Last week, it was documented by these organizations that migrant children endured a host of abuses, as gleaned from over 300 complaints they filed with federal authorities.
The recurring allegations, some crossing over from the horrors of the past two decades, punched the news cycle with stark accusations of children being hungry, physically abused, and verbally maltreated by federal agents. Yesenia Ramales, a senior legal assistant from the Arizona-based Florence Project, detailed in the released reports obtained by AZPM, "One in 10 children will disclose physical abuse at the border, and then four in 10 will experience verbal abuse by Border Patrol when they're being detained. And so to us, this shows us that children should not be in custody of Border Patrol."
Alongside the physical and verbal abuse, reports show that migrant children are often lacking basic necessities such as access to hygiene products and medical care.
Despite the gravity of the claims, Customs and Border Protection have remained silent, not having immediately responded to the latest round of filed complaints or requests for comment. They filed the complaints after seeing children, still in their formative years, subjected to fear through weapon brandishing and other forms of physical aggression as reported by the Florence Project and other legal service providers.
