Sisters who were detained at Texas Border Patrol facility win $80K settlement

Two Minnesota teenagers acquired a settlement for $80,000 from the federal authorities due to their remedy at Texas Border Patrol services in 2019.

FIVE EYEWITNESS NEWS sat down with the sisters who say they’re nonetheless therapeutic from the abuse and mistreatment.

“I’m happy to be with my family,” Kerlin Sanchez-Villalobos mentioned in Spanish. “I am grateful to God I have the opportunity to be with my mom and sisters in Minnesota.”

For the final three years, the Sanchez-Villalobos sisters have been settling into their new residence in Rochester with their mother and child sister.  

The journey to get to Minnesota was not straightforward. 

In June of 2019, the women, who were 14 and 16 at the time, crossed the Mexico border in search of asylum, hoping to achieve their mother in Minnesota. They were arrested by border patrol.

In the Texas border facility, the sisters say they didn’t have entry to water or sufficient meals. In some instances, they are saying they were pressured to play video games to be fed. 

Kerlin and her youthful sister were crossing into the U.S. throughout the border surge in 2019 that led to federal investigations into how kids were handled by the Department of Homeland Security.

According to the DHS report, officers discovered severe overcrowding, an absence of sizzling meals and entry to wash garments or a bathe.

“Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of accountability for what happened,” Ian Bratlie, ACLU Minnesota Attorney, mentioned. 

Bratlie represents the Sanchez-Villalobos household.

In 2021, they filed a lawsuit alleging the sisters were pressured into overcrowded cages the place they slept on the ground. Bratlie mentioned at one level, one of many women was assaulted by a guard.

The federal authorities settled the lawsuit this week for $80,000.

“To our knowledge, this is the only lawsuit by children that were held in these detention facilities during the surge in 2019,” Bratlie mentioned. 

Kerlin and her youthful sister mentioned it received’t erase what occurred, however it is going to assist them transfer ahead.

For the final three years, the Sanchez-Villalobos sisters have been settling into their new residence with their mother and child sister (KSTP).