AUSTIN, Texas – Texas child welfare officials said Wednesday they received three reports of abuse and neglect at a San Antonio coliseum used to house more than 1,600 immigrant teens who crossed the southern border.
This is the first time that state authorities have announced an investigation into this type of accusation in one of the centers quickly installed by the federal government in Texas to deal with the marked increase in children and adolescents who cross the border unaccompanied by a adult. A county official who also volunteers at the San Antonio site, the Freeman Coliseum, said the nature of the allegations does not match what she has seen during many visits to the facility.
Child welfare officials did not reveal who made the allegations, but Gov. Greg Abbott said it was, to his knowledge, someone who was inside the facility. One of the allegations is of sexual abuse, but no further details were released.
Other allegations include insufficient staffing, children not eating and people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 but were not isolated, Abbott said at a quickly staged press conference outside the detention center. For weeks, Abbott and other members of the Republican Party have criticized the administration of President Joe Biden for its handling of the immigration situation on the southern border of the United States.
“This facility should be shut down immediately. Children should be sent to more staffed and safer locations, ”stated Abbott.
Rebeca Clay-Flores, a Bexar County Commissioner who has been inside the facility as an elected official and volunteer, said teens are being offered three meals and two snacks a day and anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 is placed in a separate area, away from the other minors. He toured the facility with Abbott after his press conference and said he posed questions to staff, including one about protocols for conducting diagnostic tests for COVID-19.
Pastor Michael Kraft has volunteered at the Freeman Coliseum temporary shelter, where he has learned the stories of some of the migrant minors who are there.
“I wish the governor had made his tour before the press conference, in which he politicized the minors,” said Clay-Flores, who is a Democrat.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement that it could not comment on specific cases, but that it “has a zero tolerance policy for all forms of sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual behavior. inappropriate”.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services received the allegations. His spokesman, Patrick Crimmins, said he did not know at this time whether the state has received further allegations of abuse or neglect at temporary immigrant youth facilities in Texas.
Berta Cáceres was shot and killed in 2016.
HHS has rushed to open huge centers to receive migrants in the southwest of the country due to the marked increase in the number of unaccompanied minors of an adult relative entering through the southern border. The agency’s lack of capacity as crossings increased at the start of Biden’s presidency has sometimes caused some minors to wait several weeks in overcrowded and inadequate Border Patrol facilities.
In March and April alone, HHS has installed more than 17,000 beds in convention centers, oil worker camps and military bases, more than doubling the capacity of its permanent facilities that took years to open.
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