No One Knows Whats Happening in This Tent City for Migrant Kids
The detention camp in Tornillo, Texas, currently holds about 2,300 migrant
children.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reveal
By Laura C. Morel& Patrick Michels, The Center for Investigative
ReportingPublished December 3, 2018
N
This story was originally published by Reveal from The Center for
Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at revealnews.organd subscribe to the Reveal
podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.
Tornillo, Texas About 40 miles southeast of El Paso, past the billboards
for fast food joints and rugged desert hills, residents of this small
community sometimes can see the lights of the nearby detention camp glowing
in the night.
Some of them have brought gifts for the roughly 2,300 childreninside, only
to be turned away by guards.
Months after the government erected a tent city in the desert, most of what
happens inside the encampment remains hidden, even from curious neighbors in
the nearby town of 1,600 residents. The only images of the minors in the
camp, standing outside in an orderly line or playing soccer, have been
released by the Department of Health and Human Services.
When it opened in June, the detention camp in Tornillo, Texas, was meant to
be a temporary home for children ages 13 to 17 caught crossing the border
alone. But its population has grown, and a federal contract will keep it
open at least through December.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reveal
We have the same access that the whole world has, said Tornillo schools
Superintendent Rosy Vega-Barrio, which is none.
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There is one local organization that gets inside the camp regularly:
Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services. The El Paso legal nonprofit is among
dozens of groups funded by the government to provide legal services to
immigrant children in custody.
But lawyers at Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services, known locally as DMRS,
cant speak publicly about the children at Tornillo. Their contract
prohibits them from talking to the media, Executive Director Melissa Lopez
said in an interview. Its another aspect of the conflict of interest built
into the funding for legal aid, which also prevents lawyers from taking the
government to courtto get children released.
She referred questions to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. Its
better for the details to come from them, she said. The agency has not
responded to a request for comment.
When it opened over the summer, the camp was meant to be a temporary home
for children ages 13 to 17 caught crossing the border alone. But with a
growing population and a contract to keep it openat least through December,
the camp is taking on a role similar to the governments permanent shelters
for unaccompanied migrant children. It can now accommodate up to 3,800
minors.
The secrecy surrounding the camp has frustrated longtime residents of
Tornillo and alarmed lawyers and advocates who question its conditions.
After a tour of the tent citySept. 24, advocates left with concernsthat
children were given only workbooks, but no other education, and less access
to mental health counseling than found in other shelters.
There is also evidence that children arent getting the legal representation
they need.
The towns representative in the Texas Legislature, Democratic Texas state
Rep. Mary González, said she is particularly concerned that the children
arent receiving adequate legal help. During a recent morning at immigration
court in El Paso, she saw several minors from the camp appear before a judge
without a lawyer, González said.
DMRS is a nonprofit organization. Theyre doing the best that they can,
González said. But think about it this way: They were already overwhelmed
with the services they had to provide in the local community. Now theres a
thousand kids in Tornillo.
However strained the group has been, its contract prevents officials from
complaining publicly if children arent getting representation.
I dont want the government telling anyone they cant speak to the press,
González said. Transparency, particularly in a situation as sensitive as
this, is such a vital tool.
***
There is someone who can talk about life inside the tent city.
Over the summer, a 17-year-old boy named Bruno left Guatemala and traversed
1,800 miles on buses, semitrailers and trains until he reached an El Paso
port of entry in July.
After more than a month at another Texas shelter for immigrant children,
Bruno was transferred. No one told him why, he said. Reveal is not using his
full name due to concerns that his decision to speak publicly about Tornillo
may affect his pending immigration case.
Bruno arrived at the Tornillo camp at night. He saw the tents and asked a
worker where he would be sleeping. Here, the worker told him.
His friends called the camp el infierno, because of the sweltering summer
temperatures. The teens were allowed to play soccer only early in the
morning when it was cooler outside, Bruno said. He remembers one week when
the air conditioning in his tent stopped working.
My friends would tell me that maybe we would never get out, Bruno said.
And I told them we would leave one day. But then I started to think, Im
in the desert. Im never leaving.
Children sent here were supposed to move through Tornillo quickly, on their
way to placement with family in the United States while they awaited a court
date. But the governments placement process has stalled. Roughly 90
children have been held at the camp for more than three months, according to
recent court filings.
BCFS Health and Human Services, the contractor running the camp, has said
many of the teens stuck at the camp for months were awaiting fingerprint
results for their prospective sponsors, according to a court declaration
from Leah J. Chavla, a visiting attorney from the Womens Refugee
Commission.
In her declaration, Chavla said hundreds of children were not far along in
the reunification process, including more than 150 who had no viable
sponsors.
During his seven weeks at Tornillo, Bruno remembers seeing an attorney who
asked him and other teens about conditions at the camp. But he never met
with a lawyer about his case or his legal rights, he said.
He tried to stay hopeful and followed orders from the staff. Bruno slept
with 19 other boys in a tent lined with bunk beds. Workers taught the teens
how to make bracelets. He went to church services at the cafeteria.
Bruno was released from the shelter Sept. 22 and reunited with family. He
searches Facebook for the friends he left behind at Tornillo, hoping some
may have been released and have access to social media.
So far, he hasnt found them.
***
Boys enter the Office of Refugee Resettlements tent city in Tornillo,
Texas, on November 15.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre for Reveal
As sweltering summer days at the tent city have given way to freezing fall
desert nights, more and more of the children living there are going to
court.
Iliana Holguin, an El Paso immigration attorney, said her understanding was
that, since Tornillo was a temporary shelter, children werent supposed to
face immigration court while being held at the camp.
We always were under the impression that the Tornillo kids were not going
to be appearing in court here in El Paso because it was considered a
temporary shelter, Holguin said.
Today, thats all changed. Children are hauled from Tornillo to El Pasos
downtown immigration court as many as four days a week. Without their
families and, in many cases, without the legal help to which theyre
entitled, theyre forced to make major decisions like whether to return to
their home countries or whether to seek asylum.
Detained migrant children are entitled to legal representation under federal
law. Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services federally funded legal aid
contract includes doing that work.
But on Oct. 11, according to a BuzzFeed report, 11 children from Tornillo
faced a judge with no legal help, only a representative from BCFS Health and
Human Services, the contractor that runs the shelter.
The following week, González, the state lawmaker, went to court to see for
herself. This time, she said there were about 10 children, most in their
mid-teens.
The kids walk in, theyre asked their name and age, theyre told how
important this hearing is, she recalled. Theyre told, We advise you to
get a lawyer.
González said there was an attorney from Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services
present but only to give advice as a friend of the court, not to
represent the children. Instead, she said, they were given a list of pro
bono legal resources in English only which includes DMRS and five other
groups, one of which wont take clients who are in detention.
It was clear, González said, that children werent getting the help they
needed. Most were making their first court appearance and asked the judge
for later court dates to prepare their asylum claims.
One of the minors was a 12-year-old boy from Guatemala, González said. It
was his fourth court hearing, but the first in which he had access to a
translator who spoke his indigenous language. Rather than seek asylum, she
said, the boy agreed to be sent back to Guatemala.
He was so little, he was so adorable. He came all this way from Guatemala
not even speaking Spanish, she said. I dont know, maybe that kid wanted
to go home. I know he had already been in our system, detained for a
significant time. I dont know his story. All I know is that in the little
bit that I saw, he wasnt given full access to the United States justice
system.
Ill be honest, she said, I walked out and I cried.
Without answers from DMRS or the federal government, its unclear how many
of the children at Tornillo are getting legal representation in court.
Another group on the list of pro bono legal providers that children are
given is the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. Its director, Linda
Rivas, said in an email that she has not received calls from children at
Tornillo seeking representation. But shes not surprised, because she knows
that DMRS has a contract to represent them.
DMRS is passionate about their representation of unaccompanied children and
always has been, Rivas said. If they were to need our help, I know they
wouldnt hesitate to ask, and we would help them as much as we can.
But Holguin believes that DMRS only recently got approval from the
government to begin representing kids from Tornillo directly, and not only
appear with them as a friend of the court.
Holguin was the legal aid groups executive director from 2006 to 2012. She
said DMRS will have to hire more lawyers to do the job. Im sure they
didnt have staff members to absorb that demand, she said.
If lawyers with the group already are frustrated by the sudden increase in
clients, they cant say so without risking their government funding.
The attorneys at DMRS are very hesitant to disclose something that would
cause ORR (the refugee office) to potentially risk their contract, leaving
these children without representation, Holguin said.
Back then, Holguin said, there was less of a concern about speaking out of
turn. I never felt like if I said something I was going to lose my ORR
contract, she said. I get the sense that its a very different kind of
threat now.
***
Religious leaders and other protesters rally outside the gates of the tent
city in Tornillo, Texas, on November 15. The secrecy surrounding the camp
has frustrated town residents and alarmed lawyers and advocates who question
its conditions.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reveal
González, the state legislator, is one of the few people who tried to bring
attention to Tornillo before the summer. She tried to extend natural gas
service to homes and clean up its arsenic-laced drinking water. (The
$1,000-a-daycost of housing each child at the tent camp includes delivery of
water from the outside.)
This is a beautiful, humble, loving community, and this is really
antithetical to what the community stands for, González said. Its family
separation, just by another name. All these kids have a place to go, have a
family to be with.
When Alfredo Escalante first heard about the encampment, he headed to the
shelter with a few other residents and hauled goods, such as soccer balls
and home-grown watermelon, for the children. But a guard at the gate told
them to leave.
They turned us away, Escalante said. We were just rejected from the
door.
Escalante and other Tornillo residents joined protests outside the shelter
at the height of the Trump administrations policy that separated roughly
2,600 immigrant children from their parents at the border.
Tornillo schools Superintendent Rosy Vega-Barrio, shown at a county park
work site, says the school district has requested access to the detention
camp through local lawmakers, but hasnt received a response. We have the
same access that the whole world has, she says, which is none.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reveal
In conversations with school staff, Superintendent Vega-Barrio said the camp
comes up often. The district has requested access to the shelter through
local lawmakers, but hasnt received a response.
We need answers as the public, as the community, as a nation. I think
thats whats really frustrating at this point in time, Vega-Barrio said.
I dont want Tornillo to be seen or to be remembered as a place where kids
underage kids were detained. Its just not who we are.
The white tents of the detention camp for migrant children are visible from
Tornillo High Schools stadium bleachers.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reveal
Vega-Barrio described the town as quiet and family-oriented. There are
reminders of the towns new neighbor. The lights illuminating the tents at
night can be seen from the high school stadium. Large white buses heading to
the camp sometimes cut through Tornillo.
Surrounded by desert and cotton fields, the town with no traffic lights has
one mom-and-pop grocery store and a gas station. On a recent afternoon,
Escalantes mother waited for customers to arrive at her hair salon, which
she runs out of a small brick house in her backyard.
Maria Escalante, who owns Marias Beauty Salon in Tornillo, Texas, says the
governments tent city came out of nowhere over the summer. Whats
happening is just sad, she says.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reveal
People in town talk about the shelter, Maria Escalante said. Many are
sympathetic to the children because theyre separated from their families
and living in a strange place. Some residents, shes heard, now are working
at the camp.
It came out of nowhere, she said of the shelter. If it was a good thing,
we would feel good about it. But whats happening is just sad.
Psssttt! While youre here we need your help.