Immigrant families detained in cold and sunless rooms beyond 72-hour limit, advocates say

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Immigrant children are spending up to a month in cold, sunless rooms meant to house them for no more than three days, according to legal advocates charged with ensuring the government abides by a court agreement.

The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, the National Center for Youth Law, and Children's Rights filed a motion Friday afternoon asking a judge to clarify the children’s right to counsel as part of a longstanding court agreement between them and the federal government.

The U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Multiple parents held in CBP stations this year in Del Rio, Texas, Laredo, Texas and San Diego, California, reported either no access to a phone call with attorneys or calls that lasted less than five minutes.

Immigrant children in federal custody are protected under the Flores Settlement, a court agreement between the federal government and legal advocates representing immigrant children. It created standards to ensure safe and sanitary conditions in federal custody. It also allows CBP to detain children in their facilities for up to 72 hours. The federal government has a pending appeal with an appellate court to terminate the agreement .

Typically, immigrant children arrested alone or with their families by Border Patrol are processed in temporary stations and then transferred to another agency where they could be placed in long-term detention centers or released with ankle monitors .

Despite a record low number of border arrests, an annual report filed with the court by CBP found that officials took more than the recommended time to process families from March through June, the last month reported. Legal advocates found many children spent weeks and up to a month at these temporary facilities not designed for long-term stays.

Immigrant parents described being held with their children in cold rooms with cement floors and windows that only faced indoors. Lights are kept on all day and night, and many reported losing their sense of time.

“In the morning they bring us a burrito and that’s the way we learn that it is the morning,” one parent held with her teenage daughter in Laredo, Texas, in November said in her declaration. Others said they tried to steal glimpses of wristwatches as agents walked by.

Thin mats and Mylar blankets are provided at night, but one parent said the mats gave her child a rash. She came up with a solution: “At night I lie on my back and I tell him not to touch the mat but to lie on top of me, to sleep on my chest. His rash has gone down since we began sleeping this way, with me as his bed, protecting him.”

Families with young children reported being held in detention pods with no books, toys or television. One mother who was allowed to stay with her four-year-old daughter by her side said they were able to step outside the pod for an hour a day. "That is not enough for a child, to be locked in a cell 23 hours a day,” she said.

Parents were also concerned for their children's well-being. The mother of the four-year-old said her child lost weight in the two weeks of her detention and developed a stutter that only worsened after witnessing a man, handcuffed and chained at the legs and waist, walking out of the facility to be deported.

“She started crying, asking if they would chain her and take us from here the same way. Her stutter increased after that. Every time she thinks of it, she starts to cry again,” the mother said.