Border Patrol wants to build new tent to detain migrants

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. Border Patrol says it plans to build another tent facility in South Texas one week after a tent for processing migrants opened.

In a statement Friday, the agency says the 500-person tent it opened last week is already “beyond capacity.” The statement cites the large numbers of migrant parents and children crossing into the United States, many of them asylum seekers from Central America.

Photos released by the Border Patrol show dozens of migrants sitting or lying on the grass outside a small, military-style tent with only Mylar sheets underneath them. The agency says it’s also detaining migrants in the secure entryways to some Border Patrol stations.

Immigrant advocates have accused the agency of wrongly portraying migrant crossings as a crisis.