Judge Sides With Migrants Suing Border Patrol Facility Over Inhumane Conditions

February 22, 2020

Two female detainees sleep in a holding cell, as the children are separated by age group and gender, as hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in Nogales, Ariz. CPB provided media tours Wednesday of two locations in Brownsville, Texas, and Nogales, that have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally since Oct. 1. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool)

On February 19, an Arizona judge ruled in favor of migrants who alleged that some state border facilities are holding immigrants “in extremely cold, overcrowded, unsanitary and inhumane conditions,” Time reports.

U.S. District Court Judge David C. Bury ordered the Tucson sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to provide improved conditions for detained migrants. The order, which made permanent the judge’s 2016 preliminary injunction against the Tucson Sector, requires the agency to offer “clean mats and thin blankets to migrants held for longer than 12 hours and to allow them to clean themselves,” Time reports.