Skip to main content
An Oregon law professor was a leading voice sounding the alarm this week over conditions for children found at U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Clint facility near El Paso, Texas.
"They are worse than actual prison conditions," Warren Binford, a professor at Willamette University in Salem, told National Public Radio on June 23. "It is inhumane. It's nothing that I ever imagined seeing in the United States of America."
A scholar of child rights, Binford has been on the team of lawyers designated to monitor conditions for children in immigration detention as part of a legal settlement. On June 17, Binford and fellow lawyers entered the facility for a visit mandated by the legal settlement.
They found a 10-year-old tasked by guards with taking care of a 2-year-old, children sleeping on cold concrete floors with inadequate bedding, inadequately treated flu and lice outbreaks, and children who hadn't bathed in weeks, despite the fact the government had been warned weeks before of a scheduled visit.
Binford's report led to a national outcry, and the federal agency's director announced his resignation June 25.