geoff: For the second time this
month, an underage migrant has
died in U.S. Custody.
U.S. Customs and border
protection said late yesterday
that an 8-year-old girl at a
border patrol facility in Texas
experienced a medical emergency
and later died.
Cbp is investigating the
incident.
The announcement came just days
after the end of the
pandemic-era program known as
title 42.
Officials say the number of
encounters with migrants
crossing the u.s.-mexico border
has fallen by more than half
since last week.
We're joined now by kica Matos,
the president of the national
immigration law center.
Thank you for being with us.
>> Thank you for having me.
Geoff: The associated press
reports the little girl was from
Panama and that she had heart
albums.
She had surgery for those are
problems in Panama, and that she
crossed with her father, mother,
and two older siblings.
In facility where she and her
family were being detained is
one of the busiest quarters for
migrant crossings.
Tell us about these facilities?
Can they adequately address the
manifold issues that families
and children present with?
>> First, my heart goes out to
the family of that little girl.
I was in the border just last
week witnessing the end of title
42 and the impact on the asylum
ban the Biden administration has
imposed.
What I will tell you about
customs and border patrol
facilities is that they are like
black boxes.
Lawyers do not have access to
them, advocates do not have
access to them, and we know the
conditions right now are
extremely overcrowded.
The history of cbp facilities
are stories of inhumane
conditions that no human being
should ever have to confront.
Geoff: Before title 42 was
lifted, U.S. Officials said they
were preparing for as many as
11,000 people crossing the
border a day.
At the end of title 42
encounters drug to less than
5000 people.
What accounts for that?
>> I do not know the answer to
that, that I will tell you I was
on the border at the end of last
week, and what I saw were
thousands of migrants following
the regulations that were
imposed by the United States
government, patiently waiting
for their appointments on the
Mexican side of the border.
There was a lot of lack of
information, misinformation,
disinformation.
When we talk to a lot of
migrants what we heard were
stories of plain desperate
conditions, grabbing their
families and running for their
lives to the border so that they
could present themselves
lawfully to seek asylum in the
United States.
Geoff: There are people who
safety ability for migrants to
show up on U.S. Soil and apply
for asylum, that that process is
sacrosanct and that the
administration both with their
deterrence policies and now
establishing alternate routes
for people to claim asylum runs
afoul of U.S. Values, American
values.
How do you see it?
>> It not only runs afoul of
U.S. Values and what we stand
for as a nation, it is in
violation of our own domestic
laws and our own obligations
under international law.
Under U.S. Law, anybody who
seeks asylum has a right to come
to the U.S. And present
themselves whether they do it at
an airport, a port of entry,
whether they cross the border
and do it, we have an obligation
under U.S. Laws and our own
allegiance to international laws
to do that.
This asylum ban, and I am using
those words intentionally, it
makes it impossible for people
to access political asylum in
the United States.
Geoff: It appears those policies
are working.
Is there another way to achieve
both goals?
>> We have an obligation to
allow people to present
themselves to seek asylum.
That does not mean everybody who
seeks asylum to the united
States should be granted asylum.
We have an obligation to follow
our own domestic laws.
I should also note that we have
a deeply broken immigration
system.
The last time we saw
comprehensive immigration
legislation take place in this
country wasn't 1986 under Ronald
Reagan.
What that means is we have for
decades dealt with a deeply
broken immigration system that
has very few avenues for people
to legally come into the united
States.
We hear a lot of people saying
why can't they do it illegally
-- legally?
Our system is broken and
congress refuses to act.
Geoff: For a long time border
grocers were single men, and
that is shifted over time to
include families and
unaccompanied children.
Have the policies, the
resources, the infrastructure
adequately shifted to account
for that change? >> I spent four
days last week in the border,
and we met with people who are
on the Mexican side of the
border waiting patiently to be
given appointments.
We visited encampments, shelters
, we met with families, families
with young children.
The conditions in these
encampments are deplorable.
They are inhumane.
There is no basic
infrastructure.
In one encampment we went to
there were two porta parties for
approximately 1200 people.
A lot of the people in these
engagements rely on assistance
from nonprofit organizations
cobbling resources together to
try to meet very basic needs.
We have an obligation, we have
the resources, we have the
ability to provide
infrastructure so that these
families while they wait to be
processed have the very basic
standards that human decency
requires, and we are not
providing that as a government.
Geoff: Thanks for being with us.
>> Thank you for having me.
♪♪