Over 100 Activists Block Notorious US Border Security Facility In Texas

CLINT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th June, 2019) More than one hundred rights activists and protesters in a small border town outside El Paso temporarily blocked the entrance to a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility that has recently been scrutinized for detaining migrant children in poor conditions, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

This particular facility has come under fire in the national spotlight and added to a growing concern over the conditions of US migrant detention facilities after lawyers allegedly claimed that migrant children were held without enough food, water or any sanitation supplies

The protesters stood out in the 100-degree heat on Thursday chanting "Free the Children Now" while blocking the entrance to the CBP facility located in the rural farm town of Clint, Texas just outside of the city of El Paso.

"We have like more than a hundred people from El Paso, the New Mexico region and some people from outside of El Paso that came here with us to do two things: One of them is to deliver water and diapers for the children but Border Patrol closed the doors - essentially they rejected this contribution," Border Network for Human Rights Executive Director Fernando Garcia told Sputnik on Thursday at the protest.

Secondly, Garcia added, the protesters "symbolically" shut down the notorious facility.

"We closed it down because we believe that this side doesn't reflect the will of the American people," he said.

On Wednesday, CBP Chief of Law Enforcement Operations Brian Hastings told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that they were providing migrant children with sanitation supplies and food at the detention facility in Clint, which contradicts reports about the attorneys' allegations.

However, Garcia said his organization has nearly 50 testimonials from migrants with multiple abuses happening inside these detention centers including allegations "about the denial of medication [and] access to healthcare, no water, no food, sleeping in bad conditions, ice boxes."

These testimonials from migrants are not made up, Garcia stressed.

Caravans of migrants from Central American countries seeking asylum began moving toward the United States through Mexico last fall. Trump has called the surge of arrivals a crisis and declared a national emergency in February to secure funds for constructing a border wall.