US border chief quits amid outcry over child detainees

Immigrants are pictured behind the fences of a temporary facility set up for them at the El Paso Border Patrol Station on June 21. Pic/AFP

Washington: The acting head of the US Customs and Border Protection agency announced his resignation on Tuesday amid a public outcry over alarming detention conditions of migrant children in Texas.

John Sanders, appointed to the post just two months ago, said in a letter obtained by several US media outlets that he planned to step down as acting CBP commissioner on July 5.

Sanders' departure coincides with the revelation of unsanitary detention conditions for children at an overcrowded Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas, a sign of the increasing strain on resources due to soaring numbers of arrests at the US-Mexico border.

The conditions at the center in Clint were described by a team of lawyers, doctors and others who visited the facility about 20 miles (30 kilometres) southeast of El Paso.
Nearly 250 children were transferred out of Clint on Monday but a CBP official said Tuesday that about 100 were being sent back there.

US President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday he did not ask Sanders to step down but "knew there were going to be changes there."

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Trump said that he was "very concerned" about the conditions at migrant detention facilities on the border but asserted that the situation was much better than that during the previous Obama regime.

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