Attorney appalled by visit to ‘filthy’ migrant detention facilities: ‘Children are literally dying’

Attorney and law professor Warren Binford said Monday that when she toured migrant detainment facilities on the border, she saw conditions that were “so dirty, so filthy, and so unsanitary that children are literally dying.”

“They were the worst conditions that I’ve ever seen in the United States of America and the fact it was children who are literally being warehoused in a ’Lord of the Flies’ scenario where there’s no direct adult supervision and they’re having to take care of each other,” she said on CNN’s “Newsroom.”

“Children described as many as 300 in a room in the warehouse, we have children who were being kept in cells where they are sleeping on concrete floors, there are as many as 25, 50, 60 children in these cells with open toilets in the middle,” Ms. Binford said.

“They are having to eat in these cells, they’re having to defecate in these cells, the children are sick, there’s an influenza outbreak in the facility, there’s a lice infestation in at least one of the cells, and the children are being forced to care for one another because there is no one caring for them there,” she added.

When asked whether the conditions were intentional or because of a lack of resources, Ms. Binford said she tries to “think the best of people” and would hate if “someone would literally torture, abuse and neglect these children for political purposes, so I’m not going to go there.”

“What I can tell you is that there is massive mismanagement of the system that’s been set up to care for these children,” she said. “Almost all of these children have family in the United States who are ready and willing and want to take care of them. They have loving homes, and they can care for these children. America doesn’t need to take responsibility for these children. All it needs to do is get these children to their families.

“Instead, what we’re seeing is these children are being warehoused in border patrol facilities that are so dirty, so filthy, and so unsanitary that children are literally dying,” Ms. Binford said. “You see about a child die per month in these conditions.”

She also chastised the government for “literally abusing children” with their mismanagement, yet asking for more money.