An immigrant advocacy group found a 17-year-old mother and her premature baby in an overcrowded Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas. Immigrant rights’ attorney Karla Vargas says her coworker was part of the group that found the pair while touring the facility.

They were shocked to find the mother in a wheelchair holding the tiny baby wrapped in a dirty towel, the baby is described as being weak and listless.

“She was held in this icebox crammed in a cell with many other immigrants she had a premature child who clearly still needed some type of medical attention,” says Vargas.

Vargas says the mother left Guatemala when she was eight months pregnant and had a C-section in Mexico hours earlier, the baby had not received medical attention in the U.S., “This goes beyond negligence.”

The McAllen facility is the largest in the nation, but like all of the others is overcrowded. Right now there are over eight thousand people packed into the facility that’s meant to hold 3,300.

Months ago we interviewed a 17-year-old girl who was at that facility, she did not want to be identified, “I don’t wish this experience on anyone, not even on my worst enemy, she said through tears as she described the deplorable conditions, “They have you like dogs and cats among mounds of people truthfully, I want to cry because you see little children who cry begging them for their moms but there’s no way out they don’t care.”

Agents have said they are overwhelmed with the influx of asylum-seekers and the crisis is said to be worsening. Conditions at facilities are being compared to concentration camps.

Vargas says under federal law it’s illegal to hold children longer than 72 hours, in this case the mother and baby were held longer, “The unfortunate part is that she is just one of many hundreds of children who are still detained in CPB processing centers.”

The Customs and Border Patrol is not commenting on this case.

Teen Mother and Premature Baby Found at Detention Facility