UN human rights chief ‘shocked’ and ‘appalled’ by migrant detention conditions on southern US border

Michelle Bachelet said migrant children were being ‘forced to sleep on the floor … without access to adequate health care or food’

‘Consider the damage being done every day by allowing this alarming situation to continue,’ she said

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Migrant families held in an overcrowded Border Patrol facility in Texas on June 10. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:25pm, 8 Jul 2019Updated: 4:53am, 9 Jul 2019

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Monday that she was “appalled by the conditions” being forced upon migrants after crossing the southern US border and admonished the federal government for failing to find non-custodial alternatives.

“Any deprivation of liberty of adult migrants and refugees should be a measure of last resort,” she said, adding that where detention is necessary it should be for the shortest period and under conditions that satisfy international human rights standards.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. Photo: EPA

“Clearly, border management measures must comply with the state’s human rights obligations and should not be based on narrow policies aimed only at detecting, detaining and expeditiously deporting irregular migrants,” Bachelet said.

The high commissioner singled out the treatment of migrant children, saying she was “deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate health care or food, and with poor sanitation conditions.”

In 2018, Bachelet’s predecessor as high commissioner criticised US President Donald Trump’s administration for its child-separation policy. “The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said at the time.