Agents confiscated belongings and rushed deportees to California’s high desert or Texas, saying local facilities had not prepared for influx
LA protests – live updates
As federal agents rushed to arrest immigrants across Los Angeles, they confined detainees – including families with small children – in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water, according to immigration lawyers.
One family with three children were held inside a Los Angeles-area administrative building for 48 hours after being arrested on Thursday immediately after an immigration court hearing, according to lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), which is providing non-profit legal services in the region.
The children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family’s first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share. The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers.
