Migrant children in open-air desert camps are suffering from hunger and hypothermia, court documents say

CNN —

The young girl from Colombia hid in a porta potty to shield herself from the biting wind and cold as she and her parents waited at a makeshift camp along the southern border earlier this month.

Border Patrol agents had directed them to the temporary camp to await making their asylum claims but did not provide any help or shelter beyond the excrement-filled latrine, according to sworn declarations filed in federal court and interviews with volunteers who were there.

As temperatures dropped, the girl began convulsing. In tears and frantic, her father wrapped her in a blanket he found in the mud and called 911, he stated in a declaration. But he spoke no English and the operator spoke no Spanish. Eventually, an ambulance arrived and transported the girl—pale and listless—to a hospital with her mother. Agents, the father said, warned him he would lose his chance at asylum if he left the camp and accompanied his family.

The episode was one of many highlighted in a court filing Thursday that takes aim at the living conditions at open-air camps near the U.S.-Mexico border in California. Federal immigration officials have directed migrants to those camps but have failed to provide adequate food, water, shelter and medical services, children’s rights lawyers say.

A humanitarian aid worker said she and other volunteers cleaned the wound a 15-year-old Guatemalan migrant sustained to her head when she fell as she crossed the border into California.

Now, attorneys are asking a judge to rule that the federal government is legally required to swiftly move these children to safe and sanitary facilities. The move came on the same day President Joe Biden traveled to the border to meet with Border Patrol agents, law