1,500 children confined to tent city near US-Mexico border

The children being held in the barbed-wire-enclosed camp are unaccompanied minors from Latin America who travelled to the US and were apprehended by border patrol guards.

Thousands of migrant children have been taken to live in a tent city in the US state of Texas.

The US government maintains that the children are being treated with dignity and respect, but advocacy groups say many of them have no access to education and limited legal representation and worry about the effect that being detained in a camp complete with armed guards manning the exits will have on the vulnerable young people.

Until now, such unaccompanied minors were living in privately run-foster homes and shelters.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro reports from Tornillo, Texas.