MCALLEN, TEXAS – Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., toured the country’s largest unaccompanied minor processing facility and said while every person inside the facility was happy to be in the U.S., her experience inside was unsettling.
“It’s a disturbing picture. There are children by themselves. I saw a six-month old baby. Little girls. Little boys. There are mothers with their babies and with small children. Family units are together if it’s a very small child. But little girls who are 12 years old are taken away from the rest of their families and held separately, or little boys,” Warren told reporters outside the Central Processing Center.
Last Wednesday, President Trump issued an executive order that called for illegal immigrants apprehended between ports of entry to be prosecuted, but not separated from accompanying children. Adults and minors are confirmed to be related at the processing center before being moved to temporary housing or possibly prosecuted.
“And they’re all on the concrete floors in cages. There’s just no other way to describe it. They’re big, chain-link cages on cold concrete floors and metal blankets handed out to the people,” she added. “The question we asked many of them … Were they glad they cam?. And for all of them it brought smiles. And they said, ‘Yes, I am here in America.'”
In a follow-up email to Warren’s spokesperson, the Washington Examiner asked if Warren meant to say concrete floors or mats since recently released photos have showed mats on the ground. Her office said she was referring to mats on the concrete.
. @SenWarren briefing reporters outside Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas. https://t.co/oJXJw2DxkG pic.twitter.com/G547oeGEJC
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) June 25, 2018
Warren, who had not previously announced the trip and surprised a handful of reporters camped out at 3700 W Ursula Avenue, said she relied on a translator to speak with adults who were also at the facility.
“Those particularly from El Salvador talked about the violence – talked about how the gangs had threatened them individually. One woman explained that she had given a drink of water to the police and now the gangs believe that she is helping the police and so she sold everything that she has and she and her four-year-old son fled the country. She believes that she would not survive if she went back,” said Warren.
“We talked to others. We talked to mothers who just said – from Honduras in particular – who said there’s nothing there for us. America’s our last hope,” she continued.
At UAC holding center, @SenWarren says a woman from El Salvador “explained she had given a drink do water to the police and now the gangs believe that she is helping the police so she sold everything that she has and she and her 4-yr-old fled the country.” #BorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/BucJbeBE5i
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) June 25, 2018
Warren left the center to visit Catholic Charities, a national organization with a location in downtown McAllen that is assisting Central Americans released from federal custody. She also said she would visit a detention center where adults are held.
The Democratic senator, who has been floated as a possible candidate for president in 2020, rebuked Trump for a tweet he issued earlier that stated people arrested after entering between ports of entry should “immediately, with no judges or court cases, bring them back from where they came.”
“When a woman comes here with her four-year-old son, and says, ‘I am asking for amnesty, I have been threatened by gangs in my home country,’ we should at least give her a hearing and that is the least that is required of us both as a country and as human beings,” Warren said.
Minors taken into the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are required to be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services while adults prosecuted for illegal entry, a misdemeanor, remain with their children.
The Central Processing Center was opened in the midst of the 2014 unaccompanied minor surge in which minors without parents or guardians arrived at the southwest border from Central American countries. The Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Protection Act mandates all minors from noncontiguous countries be admitted to the U.S. and have their cases heard.
