Page 19 - Tornillo News Today

In june of this year, this country and the whole world rose up in horror when we saw that america was ripping children from their parents at our borders. and yet, today, just a few days before the christmas holiday, we have 15,000 children in this facility here in tornillo and around the country that are basically in child prisons. this is unacceptable for this great country. >> minnesota senator tina smith part of a delegation at the border this weekend. touring a detention center where thousan...

Wall, to stop this ongoing crisis of illegal immigration. this is a very, if it comes to it, absolutely. >> thats the face of the policy. >> and this is the end result of this zero tolerance policy that this administration put into place and now what theyre doing is its called metering. they are pushing people to wait to come in legally and to follow the law and present themselves as asylum seekers at the border, so then they go around and they try to come in any way that they can and its really...

Girl in the custody of customs and border patrol. she died hours after she crossed the border with her father in a remote section of new mexico. cal, members of congress, they are right there behind you in tornillo, texas. what are they saying? >> theyre trying to gain access to the tent city. as youll remember it opened in june, only 450 children at that time. its now swollen to 2700 migrant children. the themes that you tack do congress members is a sense of shock. you will here from congressw...

By the federal government in june of this year and it is gigantic, as well. 2,300 people are being held at this brand new facility in texas. that makes it bigger than every single federal prison in the united states except for that one old mega prison in new jersey. but this big, new facility in texas, it is not a federal prison, not technically. what it is, is a giant de facto jail for kids who havent been found to have committed any crimes. this is the shelter built by the trump administration...

All because of the overflow of migrant kids its separation policy called. its in the 23rd, and on this trip i went there for my first time. out this way is the tornillo 10 camp. its the facility for the separated kids that the trump administration set up. its almost as many people as the population of the nearby town of tornillo. living side by side with it, the obvious question is whether it is what matters most to the residents here. and frankly that wasnt so easy to find out. i stood around l...

Children. they say thats part of privacy reasons. a big part of it is because they want to show you that government narrative. they want those pictures out there. they wanted to show what is in a lot of ways normal teenage life, kids playing soccer, arts and crafts projects, people getting together and going to school like you would see any normal teenager. but we were able to talk to a few children on the sidelines, we wont disclose their names for their privacy reasons, they are minors, after ...

It has been nearly four month since donald trump was forced to reverse his policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents. two weeks ago the trump administration reported that 136 of those children are still in custody, still separated from their moms and dads. that includes three kids under 5 years old. today the administration invited reporters to tour its tent city in tornillo, texas. where the government is detaining migrant children who came across the border without a pa...

Or sponsors. officials say the champ now has around 3,800 beds and that there are currently 1,500 kids age 13 to 17 being held there. they say children who pass through the facility are kept in the system at tornillo or elsewhere for an average of 59 days, up from the 30 days common for unaccompanied children under the obama administration. joining me now from outside the detention camp in tornillo is justice reporter julia ainsley who toured the camp today. thank you for being here, julia. >> r...

Ruben garcia runs a migrant shelter about half an hour from tornillo, an area where the department of health and human services houses about 1,500 teens who crossed the border without a parent. the facility has had to extend its deadline for closing and has had to expand. >> were out of space, unfortunately, given all of the increase in numbers. >> reporter: so the immigrant advocates were talking about are telling us were seeing more children, more families coming in, crossing the border, and t...

To get any sort of report from the fbi. for now, he conversation the facility is expected to keep taking care of these teens through december 31st. >> theyre risking their life. so you have to ask yourself, what would it take for you to risk your life and that of one of your children or several. what would it take. i think thats what gets lost in this discussion. >> reporter: in the meantime, children continue to wait to one day be released, to one day be reunited with family and try to find a b...