Government photos show detained migrants pleading for help

Source: Associated Press


Nomaan Merchant, Associated Press Updated 8:09 pm CDT, Tuesday, July 2, 2019



Photo: Office Of Inspector General, Department Of Homeland Security
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A photo shows an overcrowded room and migrant detainee holding a cardboard sign that reads "help" at the Border Patrol's Fort Brown Station.OIG: "Figure 6. Eighty-eight adult males held in a cell with a maximum capacity of 41, some signaling prolonged detention to OIG Staff, observed by OIG on June 12, 2019, at Border Patrol’s Fort Brown Station."


HOUSTON (AP) — In one photo, one of 88 men in a cell meant for 41 presses a piece of cardboard against the window, with the word "help." In another, a man lowers his head and clasps his hands as if in prayer. And in a third, a woman wearing a surgical mask presses both of her hands against the glass.

The images were released Tuesday by U.S. government inspectors who visited facilities in South Texas where migrant adults and children who crossed the nearby border with Mexico are processed and detained.

As public outrage grows over the conditions in which thousands of people — some no more than a few months old — are being held by the U.S. government, the report offered new cause for alarm. It quotes one senior government manager as calling the situation "a ticking time bomb."

"Specifically, when detainees observed us, they banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody, and gestured to evidence of their time in custody," the report says. BuzzFeed first reported on a draft version of the report, which blurs most faces in the photos.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Government-photos-show-detained-migrants-pleading-14067254.php