CBP's largest migrant processing facility is under quarantine

The largest migrant processing facility in the United States has temporarily stopped taking detainees.

Customs and Border Protection announced on Tuesday evening that it had quarantined its busiest center in McAllen, Texas, one day after a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy died after being treated for the flu. Medical staff at the center have identified other detainees — living in overcrowded conditions, sleeping on mats behind metal fencing — who have high fevers and other flu-like symptoms. So, the CBP's Rio Grande Valley Sector has suspended intake operations for the time being in an attempt to stop the spread of disease, The Washington Post reports.

The medical situation in McAllen comes at a particularly trying time at the Texas border, in general. To relieve overcrowding, the Department of Homeland Security has begun transporting detainees to other facilities throughout the country — flights carrying hundreds of passengers have already departed for San Diego.

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The 16-year-old who died in the detention center was the fifth child to die after being detained by CBP in the last six months, which has sparked outrage and calls for investigations into the facilities by politicians and activists; the concerns likely won't be subdued by news of worsening conditions within the facility. "When we read of individual deaths, we see them as isolated cases," Erika Andiola, the chief advocacy officer at RAICES, an immigrant advocacy group, said in a statement. "But clearly we have a huge systemic problem."