https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-mural-22-hour-lockdown-100901613.html
Trump mural, 22-hour lockdown and no MS-13: Inside overcrowded US child immigration detention centre
Hundreds of migrant children are effectively being “incarcerated” in an immigration detention centre in Texas, according a journalist given access to the facility.
Nearly 1,500 boys are crammed into overcrowded rooms and reportedly given only two hours fresh air a day at Brownsville’s Casa Padre, the largest centre of its kind in the US.
Many were forcibly separated from their families under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy after illegally entering the country, according to MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff.
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The number of unaccompanied migrant minors held across 100 centres has swelled to more than 11,000 in the weeks since the government launched the aggressive campaign to deter families crossing the border.
A 20-per-cent rise in children being held has brought the facilities to the brink of capacity, with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now looking at building tent cities at military bases to hold thousands more minors.
Mr Soboroff, one of the first reporters allowed to tour Casa Padre after the zero-tolerance policy was introduced, said most children slept five to a room in dormitories designed only for four.
The government has allowed the centre, a converted supermarket run by private firm Southwest Key, to exceed that limit because of overcrowding.
“Kids here get only two hours a day to be outside in fresh air,” Mr Soboroff said. “One hour of structured time. One hour of free time. The rest of the day is spent inside a former Walmart.”
He added: “I have been inside a federal prison and county jails. This place is called a shelter but these kids are incarcerated.