VOA News | Thursday, April 4, 2024 
US must care for migrant children in camps, judge says

Migrant children who wait in makeshift camps along the U.S.-Mexico border for Customs and Border Protection officers to process them are in the agency’s custody and are subject to a long-standing court-supervised agreement that set standards for their treatment, a judge ruled. The issue of when the children are officially in CPB custody is particularly important because of the 1997 court settlement on how migrant children in U.S. government custody must be treated. Those standards include a time limit on how long the children can be held and services such as toilets, sinks and temperature controls. Wednesday’s ruling means the Department of Homeland Security must quickly process the children 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 CPB custody because they haven’t been arrested. Advocates say the U.S. government has a responsibility for the children and that CBP often directs migrants to the camps, sometimes even driving them there. Children traveling alone must be turned over within 72 hours to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. That agency...Read more