The teen, who declined to be named for her own safety, tells Marie Claire that she was caged with about 100 girls for four days in Texas, after being separated from her mom at the border. “They had other cages for the boys, men, and women,” she said. “It was prison,” and a prison where some children were apparently left to fend for themselves.
“I met five girls who were taking care of a little girl from Honduras who looked to be about two years old,” she said. “We knew her name because she had a bracelet on her wrist, but nothing else.” She told Marie Claire that the toddler “kind of attached to me. She wouldn’t listen to anyone else but me. I know how to change diapers and make a bottle, so I took care of her. If I hadn’t, no one else would have.”
“The little kids would cry, especially when they first arrived,” she continued. “They were saying how much they missed their parents and how much they wanted to go home. The officers wouldn’t really pay much attention to them; they just walked away like nothing happened. The big girls would try to calm them down. We would play with them or tell them to watch the movie playing on the TV.”
Due to freezing cold conditions inside, some kids began to get sick. “The officers said they couldn’t give us any medicine without our parents’ permission. But how could we get permission if we couldn’t speak to our parents?” No wonder federal leaders and media were getting routinely blocked from entering facilities detaining families—children were getting neglected, either because guards were cruelly lazy, wholly unprepared for the administration’s barbaric policy, or both.
While the teen and her mom were eventually released, her mom is facing deportation. “No date has been set and our lawyer is fighting the order,” she said. “I am fighting, separately, to stay. My mom and I have talked about what it will be like if I get to stay and she’s forced to leave. She says, ‘Honey, you’ll be able to study. At least your future is going to be set. If you have the opportunity, then why waste it?’”
Meanwhile, the teen said that the toddler she helped care for because immigration guards ignored them was eventually picked up by her aunt. It’s unknown what’s happened to her since. We do know, however, that more than 500 kidnapped children continue to remain under U.S. custody, despite a federal judge’s order. The teen and the toddler she cared for may be free from the physical cages they were held in, but may others will continue to be traumatized until they are freed and reunited with their families in safety.
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