Journalists got to visit the migrant child detention center in Clint, Texas on Wednesday following the controversy over the facility’s notoriously poor conditions–but only on very limited terms.
According to the New York Times, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials barred the reporters from bringing their phones or cameras inside the facility. Journalists weren’t allowed inside the cells nor the outside area where the agents have kept the children.
Border officials also refused to let the journalists talk to the kids. One CBP agent threatened to throw out a reporter who noticed a crying young girl making a phone call, per the Times.
“Don’t talk to her,” the agent warned.
The Times detailed the austere facility as looking “more like a jail” than a proper juvenile detention center. There were reportedly no books, crayons, or art on the walls.
The local chief patrol head, Aaron Hull, explained the poor conditions to the reporters by insisting that “we need the resources to do the job.”
Yet a CBP official claimed during a media call that same day that supplies are “available now and they have been continuously.”
The CBP did not respond for TPM’s request comment by the time of publishing.
