Conditions for migrant children at the Clint, Texas, border facility have shocked the nation since a group of lawyers reported on what they saw. But Customs and Border Protection officials kept the lawyers from seeing some of the kids who may have been most in need of advocates.
“We asked if we could visit with children who were sick and who had been ill for a few days because our understanding was that there was an area of the facility called the 'sick area' or the 'sick ward' and so, we said we wanted to see those children,” Human Rights Watch U.S. Program Executive Director Nicole Austin-Hillery told Newsweek. “We wanted to see how those children, who are most vulnerable right now, how they are being treated and being cared for.”
However, “We were prohibited from seeing those children and we were told it was for our own safety.” That’s not an acceptable answer. If those kids are too sick for healthy adults to be in their presence without danger, then they should be at the hospital.
Everything we know about how the Trump administration is treating vulnerable children is horrifying, and we have to assume that the things we’re not allowed to know are even worse. This is a moral stain on the nation even if you understand that this nation has never been pure or unstained.