Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., traveled to McAllen, Texas, to visit detention centers where immigrants are being held as part of a push to ease President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border.
“We went to five different centers,” Merkley told CNN Monday. He said they visited one center where children were being kept, one where adults were being held, and others that were meant for different stages of processing immigrants.
Van Hollen said the one center where children were being kept was divided by “large pens of chain linked fences” and called for an end to this “inhumane, cruel policy.”
“We went to five different centers,” says Sen. Jeff Merkley of the “Father’s Day of action” when a group of Dem lawmakers toured immigration detention centers
Sen. Chris Van Hollen describes “large pens of chainlink fences” and calls for an end to “this inhumane, cruel policy” pic.twitter.com/B3jS0Q77ja
— New Day (@NewDay) June 18, 2018
Over the weekend, U.S. Border Patrol allowed reporters and lawmakers to tour the facilities in Texas where immigrants are being held.
“Those kids inside who have been separated from their parents are already being traumatized,” said Merkley, who was denied entry earlier this month to children’s shelter, according to the Associated Press. “It doesn’t matter whether the floor is swept and the bedsheets tucked in tight.”
An old warehouse in McAllen was divided into different wings separated for children, adults on their own, and mothers and fathers with children. According to the Border Patrol, about 200 people in the facility were unaccompanied minors while another 500 were “family units.”
[Also read: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
