EL PASO, Texas — Reporters were blocked Thursday from viewing a newly opened temporary migrant processing facility designed to deal with the influx of migrants crossing the border illegally, despite the Department of Homeland Security inviting the press to see its facilities four days prior.
GOP lawmakers, eight members of the Republican Study Committee led by Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, visited the 90,000-square-foot facility next to the Border Patrol’s Eagle Pass South Station Thursday.
The facility is described by DHS as weatherproof and climate-controlled and is expected to provide areas for eating, sleeping, and personal hygiene. The facility is located on five acres adjacent to the Eagle Pass South Station, which houses the Del Rio Sector Central Processing Center. The temporary facility will provide additional processing capacity for Border Patrol’s Del Rio Sector.
HEARTBREAKING IMAGES OF ABANDONED CHILDREN AMPLIFY SENSE OF CRISIS AT BORDER
Although lawmakers were not encouraged to take photos, Banks’s office released pictures of his visit.
“We saw hundreds of children — many around my three daughters’ ages! — smashed together & lying on the floor under tin foil. No adults in sight,” Banks said of the facility’s environment.
The Biden administration has been restricting media access to border facilities since it reversed the core of the Trump era immigration policies, prompting waves of migrants to cross the southern border illegally and causing migrant detention facilities to go beyond their maximum capacity.
“The border patrol agents were very transparent. They were transparent about the massive spike and the comparison between last year and this year. They were transparent about the Trump policies working and that the Biden policies are not working. We heard that across the board from multiple Border Patrol agents and the leadership we visited today,” Banks told the Washington Examiner.
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“My sense is the Biden administration has told them not to allow media to come, but they know that they can’t prevent members of Congress from taking photos and gathering photos and sharing information,” he added.
