migrant facilities

Detainees at the Port Isabel Detention Center in the Rio Grande Valley have been concerned about a potential COVID-19 outbreak at the facility for months, as the novel coronavirus continues to spread in Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities across the country.

As the U.S. continues to deal with COVID-19, a migrant camp along the southern border in Matamoros, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas,  is also bracing for what could be a deadly outbreak.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect the location of the shelter. It is at a gymnasium at Alberca Chavez.

There are more than 1,500 migrants living in squalid conditions on the streets in Matamoros, Mexico. They’re forced to wait there for their day in U.S. immigration court under the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy.

Julián Castro, a Democratic presidential candidate, visited asylum seekers in Matamoros, Mexico, on Monday.

Texas Health and Human Services has confirmed that applications have come in for two new shelters that would hold migrant youth who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without a guardian.  

The unaccompanied minor facilities are slated for the Rio Grande Valley, in McAllen and Los Fresnos. 

The crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border has galvanized some American religious communities. Many congregations have thrown themselves into sheltering and advocating for migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. But the issue has also divided some churches.

Native American activists from across the country came to the Rio Grande Valley on Saturday to protest the treatment of migrants at the U.S. border, including children detention and family separation.

Almost 40 child welfare and medical groups in Texas sent a letter to federal and state leaders Thursday expressing concern about the treatment of child migrants on the state’s southern border. They say poor living conditions are causing trauma among these children, which could have lasting effects.

Updated July 19 at 12:25 p.m. ET

Mark Morgan, acting head of Customs and Border Protection, said on Thursday that his agency is rolling out the Trump administration's new asylum rule as a small "pilot" for now but that officials expect it to be blocked in court.

A crowd has gathered outside Centro de Atencion Integral a Migrantes in Ciudad Juarez. This is where migrants come to check their number on a long list of asylum seekers. 

More than a year after the Trump administration ended a controversial policy that led to hundreds of family separations, as many as five migrant children per day continue to be separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to federal data gathered by an immigrant advocacy group.

Vice President Mike Pence and Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee visited a tent-like temporary detention facility in Donna and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Station in McAllen Friday.

The same day, groups across the country scheduled vigils to protest conditions at migrant detention facilities.

Hundreds of people crowded the Texas Capitol on the Fourth of July to protest the detention of migrants at border camps. 

People are protesting the U.S.’s treatment of immigrants, with vigils planned across the country for the night of Friday, July 12. Collectively, the national event is called “Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Concentration Camps.” 

Updated at 9:55 a.m. ET

A federal judge in Seattle ruled Tuesday that asylum-seeking migrants detained for being in the U.S. illegally have the right to a bond hearing in immigration court rather than being held until their cases are complete.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said it is unconstitutional to indefinitely detain migrants who fled to the U.S. seeking asylum protections.

More than 100 people converged on U.S. senators’ offices Tuesday in Overland Park and Kansas City, Missouri, as part of a nationwide demonstration to protest the treatment of immigrants being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

About a dozen members of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus toured three migrant detention facilities near El Paso on Monday as part of an investigation.