White House officials tore into Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley on Monday for “irresponsibly spreading blatant lies,” after he shared a video of himself being turned away from an immigration detention center in Texas over the weekend.
Merkley filmed himself being greeted by police after attempting to enter the facility, where he claimed he was “trying to get answers” about migrant children who have been separated from their parents by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The Oregon senator later claimed that he witnessed “hundreds of children locked up in cages” at a separate facility in McAllen, Texas.
Deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley accused Merkley on Monday of “smearing hardworking, dedicated law enforcement officials” with his viral video and subsequent statements.
“No one is taking a public safety lecture form Sen. Merkley, whose own policies endanger children, empower human smugglers and drug cartels, and allow violent criminal aliens to flood into American communities,” Gidley said, noting that Merkley voted against legislation that would have ended loopholes that are exploited by child smugglers.
The White House also accused Merkley of promoting “reckless open-border policies” that hurt his own constituents in Oregon, including “a 65-year-old Oregon woman who was sexually assaulted by an illegal alien that had been previously deported 20 times. … and a young Oregon girl who has allegedly raped several times by a twice-deported illegal alien.”
Merkley’s video, which he shared on social media over the weekend, has been viewed more than 1 million times.
