ABC anchor Martha Raddatz pressed Rashida Tlaib to address the recent wave of migrants and the deteriorating conditions inside the border detention facilities after the Michigan congresswoman voted against an emergency funding bill.
“Congresswoman, I want to stop you here for just a second. [Acting Secretary] McAleenan has been sounding the alarm for months for resources to help the migrants, you voted against the $4.6 billion emergency border bill to deal with the surge of migrants, that included almost $3 billion to provide shelter and care for unaccompanied children,” Raddatz said on Sunday.
“Acting Secretary McAleenan says those funds are critical to get children out of CBP custody and transfer, even if the bill didn’t have what you wanted,” she continued. “Isn’t opposing aid contributing to this crisis?”
Tlaib said she voted against the bill because border patrol agents told her money was not going to solve the problem.
“What did they say on the ground, ask a CBP agent. That’s the one thing, I can talk to the secretary and he can say throw more money at a broken system, at an inhumane system. Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said more money is not going to fix this, that they were not trained to separate children,” Tlaib said.
“That they don’t want to separate 2-year-olds away from their mothers. That’s not what they were trained for, that’s not what they signed up for in their service to our country. They signed up to protect the border, not to separate children, not to put people in cages,” she added.
The vote on the aid package, which was held on June 27 and passed both both chambers of Congress, occurred before the congressional delegation visited the U.S. Border Patrol facility in El Paso, Texas on July 1.
