A judge has ruled that migrant children in makeshift camps along the U.S.-Mexico border waiting to be processed by Border Patrol are in the agency’s custody. That means the federal government must quickly place them in safe facilities. The makeshift camps have become a flashpoint of controversy.
FILE - Two migrants, part of a small group, are seeing through the mesh of the border fence as they camp outside a gate in El Paso, Texas, Friday, May 12, 2023. Migrant children in makeshift camps along the U.S.- Mexico border who are waiting to be processed by Border Patrol are in the agency’s custody _ something the agency had denied _ and said the Department of Homeland Security must quickly process them and place them in facilities that are “safe and sanitary.
The border camps have become a flashpoint between immigrant advocates and the federal government. The U.S. has said smugglers send migrants to the camps and argued that the children are not yet in Border Patrol custody because they haven’t been arrested. Advocates say the U.S. government has a responsibility for the children and that Border Patrol often directs migrants to the camps, sometimes even driving them there.
The legal challenge focuses on two areas in California: one between two border fences in San Diego and another ineast of San Diego. Migrants who cross the border illegally wait under open skies or sometimes in tents or structures made of tree branches while short on food and water. When the number of migrants was particularly high last year, they waited for several days for Border Patrol agents to arrest and process them.
The Justice Department said during a March 29 hearing that any agent who sends, or even escorts, migrants to the camps is “no different than any law enforcement officer directing heightened traffic to avoid disorder and disarray.”
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