Confidential data obtained by the Associated Press last month revealed over twenty thousand migrant children currently detained in federal government facilities across the United States. As political instability and climate crises in Central America worsen, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas stated the United States is “on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.” Currently federal government facilities appear to be detaining the largest number of children they have in months, and thousands more than they are equipped to accommodate, dashing the hopes of human rights activists that immigration policy would improve under the Biden administration.

This would be a humanitarian disaster under normal conditions. But gross overcrowding in combination with the reported conditions of these facilities and the amount of time children are spending there could also create a perfect storm for an infectious outbreak in migrant detention facilities.

Around two hundred facilities across the United States each hold about a thousand children or more, with each child staying for days or even weeks at a time. Despite a law limiting the amount of time children can be held to seventy-two hours, reports from mid-2019 noted average stays in these detention centers exceeded seven days. This year, hundreds of children were found to have been detained in these facilities for more than ten days.