Inside a Border Patrol migrant holding facility at 16 times its capacity

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holding facility in Donna, Texas, is supposed to house no more than 250 migrants during the coronavirus pandemic. 

On Tuesday, the tent complex was holding more than 4,100 migrants, including 3,200 unaccompanied children, according to Oscar Escamilla, a Border Patrol official in the Rio Grande Valley who briefed reporters during the first press tour of a CBP facility under President Biden. About 2,000 of the migrants had been held for more than three days, despite internal CBP policy dictating that all detainees should be transferred out of the agency's custody within 72 hours. Thirty-nine unaccompanied children at the facility had been held for over 15 days, Escamilla said.