A federal judge says U.S. Customs and Border Protection must allow medical professionals into its migrant detention facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors to assess the medical needs of children being held there, CNN reports.
Additionally, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee on Friday ordered that doctors be allowed in to ensure the conditions are “safe and sanitary” following reports of deplorable conditions at detention centers, including one in Clint, Texas, where children were reported to be without access to necessities like soap, clean water and showers.
“The children, including infants and expectant mothers, are dirty, cold, hungry and sleep-deprived,” prosecutors said in a court filing.
Gee, who sits on the federal bench for the central district of California, made the ruling Friday and set a deadline of July 12 for both parties to “file a joint status report regarding their mediation efforts and what has been done to address post haste the conditions described.”
She also cited previous violations by CBP and wrote that the government must adhere to the 1997 Flores Agreement, which set standards for the care of migrant children in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a now-defunct branch of the Justice Department.
"The Court has already issued several orders that have set forth in detail what it considers to be violations of the Flores Agreement," Gee wrote in her Friday ruling. "Thus, the parties need not use divining tools to extrapolate from those orders what does or does not constitute non-compliance. The Court has made that clear beyond peradventure."
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