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Let me explain how that came to be. Facilities at the border for illegals beginning processing are completely inadequate for the large numbers that often arrive now, and at times in the last few years. The overflow has to be put somewhere, leaving them standing in line outside for a couple days is not a good solution, especially if it is raining or snowing. Gathering them inside a garage, shop, sally port is a better plan. Then the issue is if you have a group of say 300 in one large space how many agents does it take to keep them safe and behaving? More than available. So chain link partitions were put up because one or more agents could watch the whole room full of people and see through the chain link what was going on inside each partition.

So remember the people who were put in the chain link partitions had not been processed, so no idea if they are criminals, mentally ill, under the influence of something. So any behavior in the group is to be expected, from sexual assault, violent assault to murder, suicide, need medical attention...any and all behaviors are not rare. That is why they need to be so closely monitored.

Some are children, and it is not clear if they are traveling with parents since they often lie to agents that has to be determined. So children may indeed be separated from their family unit, some children are unaccompanied by any adult, sometimes the parents are arrested if they have been deported before or are wanted for crimes from previous visits here or wanted in another country.

These are temporary holding areas, meant to hold people for a few hours while being processed, then to be moved to regular holding facilities. With most groups that is how it works, wait inside the partition until your turn to talk to agents. The more people that arrive at once the longer the wait will be. CPB does all it can to keep that wait time to a minimum but many things are involved. How many people they are dealing with, how many agents are available, the transportation issues to get them moved to a real holding facility. So some are held there longer than anyone would like but that is not common.

I don’t know what the solution is, but the problem is created by the people coming in such large groups at once; that overwhelms the system and drastic things have to be done to keep people and CBP safe.

The Trump administration had policy in place to deal with this, they were not going to allow any to come in until they could be processed, only processing what could be processed. The rest left waiting in Mexico. Any that came in illegally were not eligible to apply for asylum and deported. That was working, but judges have ruled against doing that so something had to be done. Supreme Court said in December anyone could apply for asylum anywhere anytime, and doesn’t matter if they cross illegally. So large groups cross illegally then making them wait in Mexico is not an option. Now they are trying to make them wait in Mexico after processing and a few other things to sort it all out.

No matter how you look at it, it is a mess but the system is simply not set up to deal with large numbers of people all at once. That does not make for ideal conditions. Remember these large groups are showing up all along the border...random places so now way to set up anything better. Large group in Rio Grande Valley, TX; then Yuma or Lukeville, AZ...then Antelope Wells, NM...random nothing to be able to plan for. When more resources, agents were sent to places getting most groups those bringing them would change locations. It is chaos. Deliberate chaos by the cartels who use the distraction of the large group to smuggle drugs or people not seeking asylum across the border.

Large groups are not even always at or even near a port of entry, in my area people have woke up to 30-50 in their yard in the morning waiting for someone to call Border Patrol. Not long ago over 100 were dropped near a remote ranch house. Hard to plan with that happening.