A first-term Republican congresswoman accused the Biden administration of effectively abetting the cartels' human trafficking in the way that it resettles children who come over the border alone.
Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan claimed the U.S. government was facilitating the back-end of the smuggling process after a trip to tour a government holding facility in her home state on Monday.
“What I saw, quite honestly, was sophisticated, organized illegal immigration,” said McClain. “I choose those words very, very carefully because the system and the process that I observed was unbelievable.”
McClain, a former businesswoman who represents a district north of Detroit, visited the Department of Health and Human Services contractor-run facility in Albion, Michigan, where 191 boys between the ages of five and 17 were being held after being flown up from the border. She said she was greeted by two of the 20 law enforcement officers who work in shifts guarding the massive Starr Commonwealth property around the clock, adding that it seemed to be a “contradiction” that the facility had a secure “border” when federal law enforcement on the southern border did not have a good hold on the international boundary.
EXTREME OVERCROWDING: BORDER PATROL TENT IN DONNA, TEXAS, HOLDING 5,700 DESPITE 250-PERSON CAPACITY
But what she witnessed in Albion was not like what other lawmakers have seen on tours of HHS or border facilities that are severely overcrowded.
“The facility is remarkable,” said McClain. “It's 350 acres of beauty. I mean, it's manicured precisely. There are 17 homes that are in phenomenal condition. There's a beautiful lake there. There's an auditorium, a gymnasium, soccer fields."
“The medical treatment that they're receiving is top-notch. They have two doctors from the [National Institutes of Health], there around the clock. They have a one-to-eight supervision-to-child ratio, which, I mean, I gotta be honest, I didn't, I didn't expect to see. So from that perspective. I think we're doing a really good job of treating these unaccompanied alien minor children with dignity and respect,” she said.
The facility opened on April 11. The government has found sponsors to release all but five of the 191 boys to within a week of their arrival, far faster than the one-month average it took HHS to find family members to release children to during the 2014 and 2019 humanitarian crises at the border.
“Some of them can't even speak English. They can't read. They can't write,” said McClain. “Understand, the taxpayers are paying them to come from the southern border, up to Michigan to then, in less than a week, to find family members across the country to then pay for them, again, to go live with their family members. … That's pretty doggone sophisticated if you ask me.”
Twenty-seven boys have tested positive for the coronavirus at the Albion facility. HHS's Administration for Children and Families said in a statement that the facility will test children before they are admitted and then every three days thereafter.
“It is a testament that if we put our minds together and we really want to accomplish something that we can accomplish it,” McClain said. “Once we get done taking care of the rest of the world, maybe we can focus on taking care of some of our children, you know, that are in foster care or have some mental illness. Maybe we can start putting America first again and our children first. I mean, look at the amount of tax dollars we're spending. It's unbelievable to me.”
Other Republicans in Congress have said that the Biden administration's refusal to return children back south of the border immediately, as it had been doing since the start of the pandemic to avoid filling detention facilities, is one of the pull factors prompting tens of thousands to cross the border each week. Many who do cross go on to seek asylum. Children from countries other than Mexico are protected under trafficking laws from being turned away.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
As of Monday, more than 20,000 children were in HHS’s care nationwide, the highest amount in U.S. history.
