Teen seeking asylum compares Texas detention center to "prison"
Tornillo, Texas — The so-called "humanitarian crisis" at the border cited by the Trump administration includes the mass detention of migrant children. The U.S. currently houses more than 11,000 children who came to the U.S. alone in detention centers.
A tent city in Tornillo, Texas was built this summer as an emergency response to the surge in unaccompanied minors. Located an hour south of El Paso, the Tornillo detention was at one point the largest detention center in a network of more than 100 government run shelters for migrant children. At its peak, more than 2,800 children were housed there — which for comparison, was larger than all but one federal prisons.
Its size created a massive need for staff and personnel and CBS News saw workers being bused in day and night. But there are questions about whether these workers were qualified or properly vetted to address the minor's mental well-being.
One former Tornillo worker, who asked that CBS News not identify her, said one day she was a guard, the next, a teacher. While she only worked there a short period of time, she said she faced lax screening when she applied, as well as only four hours of training.
"It was anybody. You were medical, you were teaching, you were transportation, you were logistics," she said.
In November, the Office of Inspector General found the Tornillo facility failed to conduct FBI fingerprint background checks. The report also found the facility's clinician staff levels were "dangerously low."
The Department of Health and Human Services generally requires a ratio of one staffer to 12 children for mental health care. But Tornillo was operating at nearly five times that, or one for every 55 children.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/teen-seeking-asylum-compares-texas-detention-center-to-prison/ar-BBS9Knp?li=BBnb7Kz
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