‘Like caged birds.’ Migrant kids held in San Diego short-term immigration detention for weeks

Migrant families with children have been detained at a border station in San Diego for weeks at a time, despite federal guidelines limiting such detentions to three days, prompting intervention from a federal judge. 

Over the past year, immigration authorities have held families and dozens of their children, ranging in age from infants to teenagers, at temporary holding facilities including at a Border Patrol station in Chula Vista and the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. 

In declarations to the court, migrants described “freezing” cold cells with exposed toilets, little time outside and limited access to soap and toothpaste. 

One 35-year-old woman who crossed the border with her husband and four children said in a sworn declaration in March that her 5-month-old had only a diaper and thin shirt to stay warm. The guards later gave her a onesie for the infant, she said. The family was held for 28 days. 

A 37-year-old mother said in her own declaration in December that she and her 11- and 6-year-old children slept on thin mattresses on the floor and were not allowed to bathe.

She said the guards gave the kids coloring pages and broken crayons to occupy themselves but did not let them go outside to play. One child made paper airplanes with the pages and played with a water bottle cap “because that’s all he has to play with.”

“My children cry here,” she said. “They feel like caged birds.”

In August, Dolly M. Gee, chief U.S. district judge in the Central District of California, appointed a “special master” and independent monitor to oversee facilities in San Diego, among other places, after finding that the length of time kids spent detained likely violated a 1997 legal agreement known as the Flores Settlement.

Judge Gee also found that cold temperatures, limited access to soap and sanitizers and lights that remained on all night in San Diego facilities were persistent issues that required monitoring by the court.

The Flores Settlement set standards for the detention, treatment and release of children in federal immigration custody and has allowed for judicial oversight in facilities where kids are held. 

It requires the federal government to transfer children out of immigration detention “as expeditiously as possible” when a significant number of them are in custody,  and for the detention conditions to be “safe and sanitary.”

In court, officials with Customs and Border Protection have blamed logistical challenges — including the availability of bedspace and arranging travel documents and deportation flights or transfers to detention centers — for the lengthy detention of kids.

But attorneys representing migrant children said they result from a policy under the Trump administration to not release from custody any migrants who cross into the U.S. unlawfully, including those who may have legitimate fear of returning to their home countries. 

A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson did not answer several questions sent via email on Tuesday and did not respond to a follow-up email on Wednesday.

The data on family detention

Between February and April of this year, 50 kids in San Diego County spent more than three days detained by Customs and Border Protection, according to government data presented by attorneys for migrant children in court. 

Customs and Border Protection is the parent agency of Border Patrol, which operates seven border stations in San Diego, and the Office of Field Operations, which staffs ports of entry. 

Government standards in place for at least a decade say individuals “should generally not be held for longer than 72 hours” in Customs and Border Protection facilities and that “every effort must be made to hold detainees for the least amount of time required for their processing, transfer, release, or repatriation as appropriate and as operationally feasible.” 

Yet children in families are being held at Border Patrol holding facilities longer than three days even as agents have encountered fewer of them at U.S. borders. 

In May, Border Patrol had almost 330 encounters with children and family members across the entire southern border. That month, the average time they spent in custody was 105 hours, or more than four days. 

Six months earlier, in November, agents had more encounters — about 410 — but detained them for 64 hours on average, fewer than three days.  

Amid record migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2023, agents made more than 100,000 encounters with children and family members, and the average time in custody was only about 54 hours. That’s almost half what it was this past May. 

Kids who crossed the border into the U.S. alone typically spent less time on average in holding facilities than kids traveling with families, according to the data although there have been cases along the border of kids traveling alone who spent extended time in border custody.

Judge Gee’s order will cover the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and Border Patrol stations in the San Diego Sector — including the Chula Vista station where most families have been held in San Diego — as well as facilities in other states along the border. 

The order also covers an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center for families in Dilley, Texas, which has garnered national media attention and become a focal point for what critics say is the administration’s inhumane treatment of immigrants.

The judge’s oversight appointees have the power to inspect facilities, request data from the government, report potential violations of the settlement agreement and provide quarterly reports to the judge for at least one year.

A look inside San Diego facilities  

Over the past year, attorneys for migrant children have pushed for intervention from the court over detention conditions, while the government has argued against it — and tried unsuccessfully to terminate the settlement agreement altogether. 

In court, a customs official reporting on conditions inside facilities across the southern border claimed the agency was not only meeting but “exceeding” all requirements set by the court. 

In a report submitted to the court in July, Henry A. Moak Jr, the chief accountability officer for Customs and Border Protection, said that the facilities “generally provided access to” drinking water, food, working toilets and sinks, blankets, cots, mats, hygiene products, “shower options,” clean clothing and emergency medical care as well as “adequate supervision to protect minors from others.” 

Moak acknowledged some issues:

• The Chula Vista station and the Otay Mesa Port of Entry had no showers, which meant kids and families in custody had to be taken to another facility nearby to shower. At the Brown Field station in Dulzura, “Paper Shower” towelettes were provided and children were “quickly transferred to a facility with showers.” 
• During a March inspection at a facility near the Chula Vista Station, a 5-gallon water cooler was filled using a hose that was “not properly maintained or sanitized.” That facility now provides bottled water. 
• That facility also did not initially provide meals appropriate for children, but the agency now contracts with a company to provide those meals. A subsequent inspection by the government in April found “no issues.”

Another official said in a declaration in July that the toilets in cells are behind “half walls,” that staff at the Chula Vista station regularly check the temperature, that outdoor recreation is provided “weather permitting” and that soap and shampoo is provided for showers. 

Attorneys for migrants and the migrants themselves have serious concerns.

“CBP facilities are truly some of the most brutal prisons in the country,” said Sarah Kahn, senior staff attorney with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and one of the attorneys representing migrant kids in the Flores Settlement. 

During a visit to the Chula Vista station in July, Kahn met three families who had been held for varying lengths beyond the government’s three-day standard: at least nine days, 16 days and 28 days, according to a declaration she filed with the court. 

Many facilities provide no access to phones, limiting migrants’ access to legal counsel, Kahn said, meaning families, and kids who traveled to the U.S. alone, could be interviewed, processed and deported without talking to an attorney. 

In declarations to the court, migrant mothers described crossing the border before being detained in cells where they and their children were held separately from their husbands.

One woman said her 9-year-old daughter, who has a neurological condition and cannot speak or walk, was “terrified” by the sound of slamming doors and agents yelling in the first of two stations where they were detained. The woman said her daughter didn’t sleep for two days and was only given a “mylar” blanket to stay warm. 

“I would hug my daughter to try to warm her, but I could not keep her warm,” she said in a declaration.

Another migrant mother said in a declaration that her family left home for the U.S. after receiving threats from a cartel that threatened to kill her and her children. 

While in detention at a border station, she said an agent yelled at her 6-year-old daughter for trying to look for her father through a cell window and that her 10-year-old son missed going to school. 

“There is nothing for the children to do,” she said. “My daughter tried to make a castle with the mat and the mylar blanket, but it kept falling apart.”