The Border Patrol’s largest detention facility in El Paso, Texas, detained hundreds of illegal immigrants beyond the three-day limit, keeping people in confined spaces for more than one month in some cases, according to a new government report.
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report released Wednesday afternoon found that under President Joe Biden, the Border Patrol’s El Paso region violated the same care and detention standards agents in the same region broke under President Donald Trump. Biden vowed early on to improve the asylum process and how illegal immigrants are treated at the border.
Government investigators made unannounced visits last October to see if Border Patrol stations were in compliance with the 2015 National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search protocols, which outline building capacity and duration limits for migrants in detention.
“Our unannounced inspections in October 2021 of five Border Patrol facilities and two [Office of Field Operations] ports of entry in the El Paso area and subsequent analysis found that Border Patrol held 493 migrants in custody longer than specified in the TEDS standards, which generally limit detention in these facilities to 72 hours,” the DHS OIG report states.
US WILL ADMIT MIGRANTS FORCED TO REMAIN IN MEXICO THROUGH ASYLUM PROCESS
The Border Patrol facility at the center of the inspector general’s criticism is new and was funded by Congress following the 2019 humanitarian crisis as a regional center that could accommodate more people than individual stations. While the cells inside were not overcapacity, people in custody were held far longer than policy permits.
Of the 569 illegal immigrants held inside, 87% were held longer than policy permits. Nearly 300 people were in custody four to 10 days; 82 were held 11 to 17 days; 53 remained 18 to 24 days; and 38 for 25 to 29 days. Twenty-three of the 569 were detained for more than 30 days — 10 times the limit.
Part of the reason Border Patrol held people beyond the three-day limit was because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was short the flight staff necessary to fly those in custody back to their country of origin, and ICE did not have enough beds to accept and house those in Border Patrol custody.
“Border Patrol and ICE [Enforcement and Removal Operations] officials told us they coordinated to arrange ICE ERO flights back to Ecuador for these 131 migrants and that between October 19 and October 29, three ICE ERO flights were scheduled and then canceled because pilots were not available,” investigators wrote. “Border Patrol … placed them into immigration proceedings by issuing them a Warrant of Arrest/Notice to Appear before an immigration court.”
The Washington Examiner in 2019 helped expose how detention conditions on the border violated federal policies. In June 2019, the Washington Examiner found hundreds of adults were being held in 100-degree heat within a fenced area outside one station.
The station that held detainees outside in 2019 was the same facility a DHS inspector general report in May 2019 revealed had been holding 900 people inside despite only being fit for 125 occupants. A Border Patrol supervisor from the El Paso region told the Washington Examiner that 2,000 people had been on the premises the day before the inspector general’s team visited in 2019.
The regional chief, Aaron Hull, was removed from his post following the string of scandals and replaced by Gloria Chavez, who is still the top agent in El Paso.
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DHS agreed with the inspector general’s recommendation that it should improve procedures for transferring detainees to ICE to avoid similar issues going forward.
