'It was the smell of sweat, urine and feces': First-hand accounts of conditions at migrant...

[DonViejo]

'It was the smell of sweat, urine and feces': First-hand accounts of conditions at migrant detention centers

USA TODAY assembled accounts from government officials as well as pediatricians who have toured border facilities. Here's what they said.

James Sergent, Elinor Aspegren, Elizabeth Lawrence and Olivia Sanchez, USA TODAY
Updated 9:22 a.m. EDT July 17, 2019

So far in 2019, Border Patrol agents have taken roughly 600,000 migrants into custody. Seven children have died in U.S. custody since last year.

A reporter traveling with Vice President Mike Pence during a recent tour of an all-male detention center in Texas described a horrendous stench and said nearly 400 men were housed in sweltering cages so crowded it would have been impossible for all of them to lie down. The Border Patrol supervisor who gave Pence the tour admitted that the men in custody hadn’t taken a shower in 10 to 20 days.

After his visit, Pence said: "It was frankly heartbreaking, as parents, to talk to young children who told us of having walked two and three months ... to cross into our country."

He also defended the facilities: "Every family that I spoke with told me they were being well cared for."

Many media reports, including the USA TODAY Network's El Paso Times, have described conditions at the detention facilities as nightmarish.

more
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2019/07/16/migrant-detention-centers-described-2019-us-government-accounts/1694638001/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Probably smells almost as bad as the Oval Office.

But that stinks of evil.

[Guilded Lilly]

2. My first thought as well! n/t

[lpbk2713]

3. That's why they require two weeks notice on official visits.

Imagine how foul it must be before that.

[hedda_foil]

4. Pence didn't lie. He said "every family he spoke with said ... He saw NO families.

So none of them could possibly say they weren't well cared for.