New information and new pictures from south Texas where reporters were allowed to visit another facility for detained immigrants, this one named “Ursula” in McAllen, Texas. From the Associated Press:
- Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of children wait in a series of cages created by metal fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bags of chips and large foil sheets intended to serve as blankets.
- More than 1,100 people were inside the large, dark facility that’s divided into separate wings for unaccompanied children, adults on their own, and mothers and fathers with children. The cages in each wing open out into common areas to use portable restrooms. The overhead lighting in the warehouse stays on around the clock.
Also allowed inside was CBS News correspondent David Begnaud. Please watch his reports below:
These images were just released by border patrol @CBP showing the McAllen, Texas detention facility that we were allowed to tour today. For now, we can only rely on what they give us. They will not allow us inside to film on our own. Why? “Privacy”; they don’t want faces shown pic.twitter.com/laZAyEHwij
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) June 17, 2018
We were allowed to tour the US border patrol detention facility in McAllen, TX — with no cameras. Here’s what we saw https://t.co/12tg9kgiW5
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) June 17, 2018
The Border Patrol is said to allow families with children younger than five to remain together. But that’s not what one children’s advocate witnessed. From the AP:
- An advocate who spent several hours in the facility Friday said she was deeply troubled by what she found.
- Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, met with a 16-year-old girl who had been taking care of a young girl for three days. The teen and others in their cage thought the girl was 2 years old.
- “She had to teach other kids in the cell to change her diaper,” Brane said.
Meanwhile, former first lady Laura Bush has written an opinion piece for the Washington Post calling the Trump policy of separating parents from children “cruel and immoral.”
Laura Bush: “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.” https://t.co/yc3SLxAbdy
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) June 18, 2018
And the lying continues. This from the head of Department of Homeland Security:
We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.
— Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018