Gstalter writes: "Immigration attorneys said four toddlers, all under the age of 3, were hospitalized last week after spending time at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas."
Immigrant children in a detention center. (photo: Ross D. Franklin)
22 June 2019
mmigration attorneys said four toddlers, all under the age of 3, were hospitalized last week after spending time at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas.
Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney, told HuffPost�on Friday that the children, who have teenage parents or guardians, were coughing and vomiting and had fevers and diarrhea.
One 2-year-old�s eyes reportedly rolled to the back of her head, according to Gialluca, and she was �completely unresponsive.�
Their immediate condition is unknown.
�It�s just a cold, fearful look that you should never see in a child of that age,� Gialluca said. �You look at them and you think, �What have you seen?��
The lawyers told the outlet that they forced the government to hospitalize the children and feared that�the children�would have not received medical attention had they not toured the facility.
�It�s intentional disregard for the well-being of children,� Gialluca said. �The guards continue to dehumanize these people and treat them worse than we would treat animals.�
The Hill reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment.
The HuffPost report comes after a Justice Department lawyer suggested at a recent hearing�that a toothbrush and soap were not necessarily required to fulfill sanitary conditions for detained migrant children laid out in a years-old agreement.
The Associated Press�reported that Sarah Fabian, a senior litigation counsel for the Justice Department, made the suggestion while discussing a 1997 settlement agreement that requires certain sanitary and safety standards be met for detained persons during a recent hearing at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
