Washington D.C., Jul 11, 2019 / 10:15 am
Members of Congress heard testimony on Wednesday about harsh conditions in migrant detention facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border, including from a bereaved migrant mother whose infant child became sick in detention and eventually died.
"I am here because the world should know what is happening to so many children inside ICE detention," Yazmin Juarez, a 19 year-old migrant from Guatemala, said in her testimony through a translator before members of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on July 10.
"My beautiful girl is gone, but I hope her story will spur this country's government to act so that more children do not die because of neglect and mistreatment," she said at the hearing on "Kids in Cages" at migrant detention facilities.
The number of migrants journeying to the U.S.-Mexico border climbed sharply in recent months. A July 2 report by the Inspector General (IG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found that the number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley Sector alone rose by 124 % in the 2019 fiscal year against the same eight-month period the previous year.