An inside look at the Tornillo ‘tent city’

We’re getting our first look at the immigrant child detention facility at the Tornillo Port of Entry, also know as the Marcelino Serna POE.

The pictures were taken by Health and Human Services officials and released to the media. No children were inside the tents when the pictures were taken.

It does, however, shed some light as to the conditions those housed there face. U.S. representative, Will Hurd, who represents Texas, was given a tour of the facility.

“The facility I toured housed 16 to 17 year old boys. They were unaccompanied minors,” said Congressman Hurd.

The Republican congressman explained the children currently housed there tried crossing the border into the U.S. without their parents.

The Trump administration recently gave the green light to begin housing immigrant children separated from parents when the parents try entering the U.S. illegally, or are seeking asylum and are being processed.

One of the pictures shows what is inside a large tent: a processing center where children are admitted into the facility.

There’s also medical staff on site, providing the children with medical attention.

That same processing center has an area with multiple tables and hundreds of chairs, set up to look like a mess hall where the teens can eat.

Surrounding the large white tent are a series of small beige tents.

Pictures show the inside of those tents. Several bunk beds fill the inside of the tent. A duct system is connected to air conditioning units right outside the tents.

Port-a-potties are at the end of the row of beige tents.

El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who represents the 16th district, told ABC-7 nearly 100 children are being housed there right now, but he believes that number could surge into the thousands.

“We know that they are looking at expanding capacity to house up to four thousand children in this facility,” said O’Rourke.