Internal Emails Indicate ‘Deplorable’ Conditions at Catholic-Run Child Migrant Facility

CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic-run facility in Pennsylvania forced migrant children to live in “deplorable” conditions, according to internal Biden administration emailsobtained via a Freedom of Access to Information Act (FOIA) request by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF).

On Saturday, April 10, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Acting Director Tracy Renaud forwarded a message alleging that children in a Pittsburgh-area facility were living in horrific conditions and being refused basic medical care. USCIS operates under the Department of Homeland Security (HHS).

“We received the message below from one of our detailees who is working at the HHS facility in Pittsburgh,” Renaud wrote. “Is there some way to raise this with your POCs at HHS to see if we can get some assistance in improving conditions?”

The message Renaud shared in the email read in full:

I’m on deployment for the border force. We were first at the hub that’s been on the news in Donna Texas. There are no words for that situation.  But then we got shipped out to Pittsburgh to help an HHS facility get set up ahead of gov contracts being written. We are supposed to go somewhere new every two weeks. This place in PA is deplorable. They only have 68 kids but I’d rather be in Donna with the 5,000. They haven’t cleaned a thing in the time it’s been set up. There is shit smeared on the floors. We have begged their admins to have a cleaning service come in but they refuse. Say the 5 year olds can clean themselves. Half the kids on my floor have covid and it’s spreading. They aren’t sectioned off anymore. They are sharing oral thermometers. Everyone on my floor has lice. They treated them then out them back in the same dirty sheets. List goes on. I heard they sent a report up to DHS saying all the measures and precautions they are taking and none of them are true. I don’t know who to complain to. All 16 of us here from DHS have voiced these concerns here and they ignore us. It’s bad. It’s a sesspool and they are making us work in it too and exposing the kids. I thought one of the girls was pregnant. The clinic refused to see her. Kids have 100 fever and aren’t seen by anyone. It’s bad. But HHS is working with holy family institute which has this place Journey of Hope. Literally lice and covid and not one surface has been cleaned in more than two weeks.

And they are furious we won’t complete a ‘spirituality log’ regarding the children’s Christian faith and daily prayers.

I literally walked through flooded toilet water of a covid kid to serve dinner to the kids. 

We are in this 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. We work 12.5 hour shifts. Every day

I only get one ppe mask and I can only get a new one every 15 days but I’m caring for covid kids for 12.5 hours a day everyday. 

Read the rest: https://catholicvote.org/internal-emails-indicate-deplorable-conditions-at-catholic-run-child-migrant-facility/